


Hero's Survival

by MAngel05



Series: The Hero Series [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Death, F/M, Other, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 46,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1401199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MAngel05/pseuds/MAngel05
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Reapers are here, the galaxy is being destroyed, and it's all my fault. Now I've gotta stop the Reapers, save the galaxy, and find a way home...oh and I'm pregnant. What's a girl to do? </p><p>Sequel to: Surviving Hero!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Now What?

**Chapter 1** : _Now What?_

* * *

 **Location** : _Battlefield Above Earth_

 **Date** : _June 14, 2184_

My eyes widened as we watched the Citadel begin to open as the Crucible attached itself to it. Then Hackett's voice came through the comm system. "Shepard, the Crucible isn't firing! It's something on your end!" Ann's voice came through next. "There's nothing here!" She sounded both panicked and exhausted. "Wha-" came John's voice before we lost a connection with both. I looked over towards Jeff, who was sitting in his chair; while I sat in the co-pilot's seat. Minutes passed very slowly. What seemed like hours was in fact no more than ten minutes when the comm began crackling. "Joker we need a pick-up asap!" came one of their voices, but the comm was so pitchy that I couldn't tell if it was Ann's or John's voice.

"Aye, aye Commander." Jeff answered. His voice ever so calm that it was quite eerie. As we closed in to the Citadel for pick-up we noticed that the entire structure, including the Crucible, was glowing an odd color.

I couldn't pay too much attention to it as the comm crackled again and once more I couldn't tell who it was exactly. "We...Citadel...gonna blow!" was all we heard, and it was all we needed to hear as Jeff drove the Normandy into a hot pick-up and in seconds began to take off towards the relay.

Both of our hands flew over the holographic displays of consoles as we went through the relay. "Jeff, I'm picking up a huge surge of energy!" I yelled out at him.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he cursed when suddenly all the klaxons began sounding loudly.

The console I was at suddenly caught fire. I quickly pushed myself away from it, wrapped an arm around my swollen stomach. "Shit!" I screamed as I grabbed my burnt left hand.

"Serena!" he yelled as we were hit by a wave of pure energy. I was thrown from my chair to the ground. I felt my head hit something and as darkness took me over I was reminded of how this all began.

* * *

 **Location** : _Citadel_

 **Date** : _October 28, 2183_

My eyes widened, as did every spectator on board the ships in and around the Citidel. They had no choice, we had to retreat. The Citadel was activating! "This is Spectre John Sheperd, we need evac shuttles asap. I repeat, we need evacuation shuttles for civilians asap!"

I looked over towards Jeff, "We need to get them." I noticed he was looking at the now charred remains of the _SSV Normandy_. I placed my hand on his shoulder as we passed the escape shuttles. "Should we help 'em?"

He looked up at me. "After we get Ann." He looked towards the co-pilot seat. "Could use my sexy co-pilot." he smirked.

"Yeah well, your sexy co-pilot has to go help Chakwas." I leaned down and kissed his bearded cheek. "Keep us safe," I whispered into his ear as I left.

* * *

Ann shot another husk as it came hobbling towards them. "Joker we need pick-up asap!" she yelled into her comm. She saw John dodge a geth hopper as Jacob made it explode from a hacking.

"Coming in behind you Commander," was her response from him.

"We're on the damn Presidium. There's nowhere to land!" she yelled at him.

"It's me you're talking to Shep, I can do the impossible. I'm Jeff Joker fuckin' Moreau! I can do this!" he yelled back at her.

"Then get it done Moreau!" she heard John yell as his body lit up with his biotics, the geth flying from the Presidium to the ground below.

"You heard him Joker, get it done," she said as she picked up her collector based gun. The superheated plasma tore through the husk bodies without hesitation.

Ian pulled out his sniper began shooting the geth from the walls. "Why did it have to be Garrus!" he growled. "My best friend!" he shot another and another, each one being a head shot.

Ann looked at Ian and then towards her husband. "Keep your head in the game!" Garrus growled at the human.

Ian paused as he looked at the turian before he nodded. "Right," he muttered as he shot again and got another headshot.

Wrex threw up a shield around the two Shepards as a kamikazie husk came running at them, but blew up on impact of the krogan's shields. The two looked at him. "You can thank me later," he growled, his eyes shinning in what could only be amusement.

Just then there was a whirling of engines and as the wind picked up everybody looked up to see the _Normandy SR-3_ come barreling through the Citadel. It's thanix canon shot through a building allowing it to pass through it to the teams awaiting for an evac. The ship came to a pause as it shot at the building opposite of the team, which then collapsed and allowed it to spin around and open the cargo bay. John's remaining team jumped into it. They gave cover fire to Ann's team who jumped in after them. Kal jumped last and paused when a single shot was heard, causing Ann to turn around quickly with he pistols drawn. Kal lifted his hand to reveal purplish/blue blood on his hand. He'd been shot. It was a through and through. "Commander?" he asked as he fell to the ground unconscious.

"I need a medic!" she yelled as she grabbed him before he touched the ground.

"Good thing I'm here then," came Serena's voice as she ran over to the fallen quarian in the Commander's arms. Chakwas was right behind her. The two began to check his pulse, scan for infections, see if any major organs were hit, and then got him onto the gurney and ran him to medbay.

Ann looked out the cargo bay as it began to close and the Normandy began it's ascent into space and away from the oncoming apocalypse. John grabbed Ann's shoulder. "What now?" he asked. He looked to be still shaken by what had happened.

"Now, we fight back." she said as they walked into the elevator. "But first we need to go to Eden Prime."

"Why?" he inquired as his eyebrows knitted together. "What's on Eden Prime?"

Ann smiled. "A friend," she responded as the doors to the CIC opened up.


	2. Eden Prime

**Chapter 2** : _Eden Prime_

* * *

 **Location** : _En Route to Eden Prime_

 **Date** : _October 28, 2183_

My eyes closed as I leaned against the wall next to the medbay doors and took a deep breath. Kal's surgery had taken a few hours to do. The room had been a clean room, which was something quarians needed to be in, in order to be out of their suits. I'd seen quarians through diagrams and such a long time again when Dr. Solus had given them to me for extra learning. Kal had been lucky. The bullet had come mere inches of severing his spine. He'd lost a lot of blood, but Carolyn had high hopes for him pulling through and making a full recovery. When I had seen Kal in Ann's arms I had been scared, mostly because I knew Tali really liked him, or at least the first Tali I had known did.

Upon opening my eyes I pushed myself away from the wall and walked away from medbay towards the elevator. Everything that had happened had yet to really sink in. I decided that I needed to go somewhere quiet, but once I had arrived at the elevator and it opened I was greeted by the sight of seeing Ian on the floor. He looked like he was between yelling at somebody, killing something, or crashing down to cry. "What happened?" I inquired as I stepped inside the elevator.

His eyes searched mine for a moment. "Garrus..." he began, but stumbled on the words for a moment. "We fought Saren together...but..."he trailed off for a moment.

"He died," I finished for him, receiving a single nod from him. I pressed a button on the elevator button. "Need somewhere quiet to be?" I asked as I looked at the young man next to me. Again, all I got was a nod. "I know of a place," I said as the doors opened to the floor with the observation deck. Helping Ian to stand up, we made our way to a couch near the front of the room.

Neither of us said anything. While Ian was looking into the distance, I was lost in my own thoughts. Only hours ago I had survived both an assassination and had found out that I was pregnant. Pregnant. Me pregnant. A couple of years ago, if I'd been told that this was to be my life in the future, I would've laughed.

My hands slipped from my knees to my stomach where my baby was growing. Even though the galaxy was coming to an end, I couldn't help but smile at the though of myself becoming a Mom, and at that moment I made my baby a promise; that I'd do everything in my power to keep it safe, no matter what.

After several minutes of silence I heard Ian take a deep breath. Upon looking at him I saw that he had blue blood in his hair and on his face. I was about to ask him if he wanted to clean up when the doors opened up behind us. Turning around I saw Ann walking into the room. I quickly removed my hand from my stomach as she came around the couch and stood in front of us. I didn't want to tell her just yet about my pregnancy when I didn't even know how Jeff felt about it. "Ian, right?" she asked.

"Yes Ma'am," was his reply as he lifted his head and looked at her.

"I'm sorry about your friend," she said sincerely. "Garrus Vakarian was a good soldier and officer." She paused. "I didn'know your Garrus very well, but if he's anything like my husband, then I know he wouldn't want you to mourn him too long when there's a Reaper Invasion to stop."

I watched as Ian swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded at Ann. "What do you want me to do?"

This caused Ann to smile slightly. "I'm going to need your help on an upcoming mission," she said. "First though, I want to know more about you and your specialties."

Ian thought for a moment. "Weapon specialty is sniper rifle and pistols. I'm good at tech, some hacking skills; Garrus was teaching me that one." He sighed. "I'm British by birth, I moved to the Citadel a few years ago, became a C-Sec investigator, and joined John's crew a month or two ago."

"Sniper and pistol," I heard Ann repeat. "What type?"

"I like the Predator pistol most. It's lightweight, has high ammo capacity, and can be fired rapidly with very little recoil." He said as she smirked at his choice. "I prefer the Mantis sniper rifle for its power whilst remaining lightweight and stable."

Suddenly there was a chuckle behind Ian, causing his smile to disappear as Ann's husband, Garrus walked up to his wife's side. "Sounds like we may get along."

Ann chuckled and then looked at me. "The AI on Ilos said that all you had to do was wish us home or something to stop the oncoming apocalypse."

"Wish it?" Ian asked at the insane idea that it only took was a wish.

I thought for a moment and then remembered my strange dream. "The _In Between,_ " I whispered.

"Yes," she said. "What is the _In Between_?" everybody looked at me.

"The _In Between_ is a reality between life and death; but is also a dimension between realities. Very few can pass through it successfully." My eyes widened at a realization. "When I was home two or three years ago I made a wish. I literally said I wished my life would be more exciting or that I'd have an adventure. I went to bed and awoke on the Citadel and that's when this all began. Then on the Collector Base I wished I could change things and I appeared on the _SSV Normandy_. Then I missed everybody, especially Jeff, and that's when your ship and crew came here." The realization hit me like a charging krogan. "I'm the reason all of this has happened."

"No." I heard Ian say. "This isn't your fault."

"Ian's right. Spirits, this could've happened to anybody," I heard Garrus say. I felt the couch sag next to me and looked at the turian. "I've known you for a while. Hell, you helped piece together my face. You're a good person and I know you feel like this is your fault, but it isn't."

"My husband is right," Ann said with a smile.

"So if bad things follow her making a wish..." Ian trailed off.

"Then no more wishes until we get what's on Eden Prime," Ann said as she went to walk out.

"Which is?" Ian inquired after her.

She paused and looked over her shoulder. "A friend..." she said smirking. "A Prothean friend."

* * *

 **Location** : _Orbit Above Eden Prime_

 **Date** : _October 29, 2183_

I looked over at Joker from the co-pilot's chair as he was eating a bagel I had brought him, while flying the SR-3 in orbit around Eden Prime. The planet was another garden world that the Alliance had transformed into a colony. One that, a few months ago, was being attacked by Saren and his geth. "We're stealthed Commander," he said over the comm.

"Thanks. We're taking the shuttle," came her reply.

"Ya know, this is actually an easier mission than last time," he said as he plopped the final bite into his mouth.

"I hear a but coming." I joked, causing him to smirk.

"But we had already defeated Dr. Eva at the Mars Station." His smirk vanished. "Though I'll admit that mission could've gone better."

I looked out the window ahead of us and sighed as I looked at the blue/green color of the planet below. "Why?" I asked absentmindedly.

"Well, she was a Cerberus android," he said as if I should know. "She almost killed Cortez, the shuttle pilot. Alenko got his head hashed in and if the Commander hadn't shot a rocket at the metal bitch I'm sure Garrus would've killed her-it...whatever." I giggled at the last part. "I'm serious!" he cried out acting wounded, which caused me to laugh more.

"Speaking of Cerberus, the Illusive Man knows about me and if he does then ten to one so does the Shadow Broker." I didn't even look at him while saying this.

"Joy," he sighed.

Deciding now was the best time to have a good talk about our situation I took a deep breath. "So we haven't talk out _it_ yet," I said nervously.

"It?" he asked confusedly.

"The baby," I whispered delicately.

"Oh," he said as he pulled his hand away tron the console. "It's not like I'm **not** happy about it, but I've kinda been too busy to think about it."

"Oh," I said trying desperately not to sound sad.

"Growing up with my condition is something I always hated." he began. "At first I hated the fact that I couldn't do things that others my age were doing. Then it was the fact that by age ten I'd already broken every bone in my body at least fifty times. Then I lived on Arcturus Station since I was seven. My Dad and half sister lived on Tiptree, a tiny colony world in the middle of nowhere. My Mother was constantly fussing about something that I'd done that had caused me to break something." He sighed. "I never wanted to pass this onto my children, so I barely dated." He looked at me. "Then I met you and everything changed." He looked at my stomach. "When I found out about the baby I was excited, but very scared." He then smirked. "But we'll be alright. I know it. I mean, we can't do any worse than my parents did. Right?" I smiled happily and just nodded.

* * *

Ann looked out the shuttle cockpit as they came in for a landing at the digsite. She noticed that it wasn't as big as it had been before due to it being two years earlier, but she was certain they'd find Javik here. Part of her was hoping they'd run into Cerberus troops or agents, but the other part of her just wanted this to be a boring grab and go mission. Turning around she saw John and Alberdeen checking their weapons, while Ian counted how many clips he had of ammo. "Alright," she began. "We're here to find a Prothean soldier named Javik. In my time his stasis tank was being prepared to be moved by Cerberus troopers, however this time I'm hoping it'll be different. This is an archaeological digsite, so expect to run into a scientist or two." She paused and looked at John. "You're a Spectre, so use your status to get what we've come for at any means nessasary."

"Wasn't gonna say anything, it's your mission," he said quietly as he put on his helmet. "I'd like to split us up. We'll cover more ground faster."

"Agreed," was her reply as she put on her eye piece that was similar to the one Garrus wore. "Shaw, you're. with me." Ian nodded.

"Alberdeen and I will head towards the science labs and see what's going on," John informed Ann as the shuttle landed.

"Good." She looked over towards Shaw. "Ian and I will take the shuttle to the platform I remember Javik being on. If he's not there we'll meet you at the labs."

"Deal," John said as he jumped out after Alberdeen.

Turning towards Cortez, Ann tapped his shoulder. "Do you remember where to go?"

"Sure do Commander!" he yelled out happily. "And here I thought you forgot about me."

"Hard to do that Cortez," she laughed, then turned towards Ian. "Try not to piss off Javik when you meet him."

"Ah man and here I was gonna sing Kumbiyah to him," he said sarcastically as his accent thickened.

"Smartass," she muttered as she checked her own weapons.

"Why thank-you Commander," he laughed causing her to chuckle as they landed on the platform. They didn't even walk ten feet when Ann spotted the stasis pod.

Pulling out her own Predator pistol she slowly walked over to it. "John, we have the package," she said into the comm.

"Good," came his breathless reply. "We're kinda having a shootout with a Dr. Eva."

"John be careful! She's a Cerberus android!" she yelled into the comm.

"Fuck," she heard Alberdeen curse. Turning towards Ian she pointed him towards the pod. "We're opening it now. We don't have time to wait around." They both rushed over to the pod. Ian stood ready for an attack as Ann opened it.

As the steam poured out of it Ian turned in time to see the Prothean jump out glowing with biotics. The Prothean then turned towards Ann and grabbed her. They were stuck still for a few minutes when the Prothean pulled away abruptly. "Impossible," he said as if he was out of breath.

"Look we don't have time to play fifty questions right now. We need your assistance Commander Javik," Ann said knowing he'd seen some images in her mind that allowed him to know she wasn't from this reality.

Javik lifted his head and smirked. "And what makes you think I'll assist you primate."

"Because you and I both know that the Reapers will destroy everything in this galaxy if they're not stopped." She heard an explosion in the distance. Touching her omni-tool she yelled at John. "What was that?"

"Uh, Alberdeen just blew the labs in hopes to kill that android." There were popping noises as the gun went off. "It didn't work."

"Find a rocket and blow the bitch up!" she yelled looking back at Javik she saw he was now looking at Ian who was looking awfully nervous.

"You are not from here either," Javik stated before turning back to Ann. "I agree. I will help, but I want my pod to come with us. I may need it."

"Sure," was her reply as another explosion occurred. "Cortez get the shuttle over here and lets get out of dodge."

"Aye, aye Commander!" was the pilot's reply.

As the sun disappeared over the horizon, Ann knew that the upcoming battles were going to be testing everybody, especially her crew; but she knew they'd pass 'em with flying colors.


	3. Javik

**Chapter 3** : _Javik_

* * *

**Location** : _Attican Traverse_  
 **Date** : _October 30, 2183_

The Attican Traverse was the home of four major human colonies; Eden Prime, Terra Nova, Shanxi, and Mindoir. In the two days since the Reapers attacked the Citadel massive evacuations of these colonies were taking place. There were also dozens of minor colonies being evacuated, but where these evacuees were going to go was beyond anything any normal person knew.

Serena continued to look into the galactic map in front of her in the CIC. Next to the CIC was the new War Room where Ann and John were both currently talking to the surviving counselors; Trevose and Valern, on holographic screens. Turning away from the War Room she saw Joker near a console typing something. "What are you doing?" she asked as she sat down in the seat next to his.

"Looking to see if anybody picked up the _SSV Normandy_ crew," he continued to type when he suddenly smiled and then laughed. "Ever heard of the _SV Kilimanjaro_?" This got a blank look from her. "In our reality it was lost to a Batarian raider attack. Its captain was a crazy assed woman named Hannah Remington. In this reality its captain's name is Hannah Shepard and is John's aunt. She was at the Citadel during the attack and was able to breakaway from Malcavich's fifth fleet in order to save the Normandy's crew."

Serena chuckled. "Let me guess, your number two was saved?" she giggled at his smirk.

"Yep." he chuckled. "And the reapers will never have a chance with two of us around."

"That's good to hear Joker," came John's voice from behind us. "Glad my aunt is still alive too."

"You two close?" Ann asked as she leaned against the glass of the War Room's door.

"No." He paused. "She's my dad's sister and I hated her as a teen. Joined the Systems Alliance N7 program even as she protested against it." He shook his head. "She was okay with anything else, but not the N7 program."

"Wonder why," Ann said, not really expecting a reply. She turned towards Joker. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, she's off the grid," he said. "After leaving the Citadel, the Kilimanjaro went silent...that is until you guys hit the dirt on Eden Prime yesterday. She's docked herself near Tiptree."

"Tiptree?" John inquired.

"It's a small colony world that circulates a big gas giant." He tapped a few buttons on the console and brought the planet up on the galaxy map. It appeared next to a blueish gas planet, which had two other moons circulating around it. "Tiptree has one major landmass with four smaller landmasses surrounding it. It's mostly a farming colony, but two of the smaller landmasses have two large corporations on them. One is a terraforming corporation called T-Forming Corp and the other is called Zaren Mining Corp. Both are owned by a Alsir Vas Quib and Alister Jarzenski."

"Alsir is quarian,"Ann stated. "Why would a human and quarian go into business together when all quarians live within the fleet?"

"He was exiled," came Tali's voice from behind the group. Everybody looked at the young quarian girl who John didn't recognize because he hadn't seen her in the purple suit she was now in.

"Tali," Ann said sadly. "How's Kal?"

"Better." she sighed. "We wanted to thank-you for the clean room that's on the other side of the medbay."

Ann chuckled. "You making it of use?" she inquired.

"Commander!" she squeaked.

Ann began to chuckle. "Can you blame me?" she defended herself. "I want to be an aunt!"

"Oh Keelah!" Tali gasped out. "Ann it's gonna be...awhile for that."

John coughed to cover a laugh of his own. "Can't blame me for trying," Ann defended. "Guess John and I should go down to the cargo hold and check on our Prothean friend." She turned to Joker. "Put in a course for Tiptree."

"Aye, aye." he nodded as he headed to the cockpit.

Ann turned to Tali. "Why was this guy exiled?" she inquired.

"He tried to kill an admiral." was her reply.

"Why?" Serena asked Tali who seemed shocked to see her at first.

"Uh..." she began. "It was Zaal'Koris. He disagreed with him on many policies and finally just had enough. Zaal had him exiled for the attempt, but before that Alsir was a very good man and was my fathers best friend."

As the group approached the elevator Ann turned to Tali. "That reminds me, we need to get into contact with the migrant fleet, including your father Admiral Rael'Zorah." She watched as Tali nodded as both she and John vanished into the elevator.

Tali then turned to Serena. "So when were you going to say hi to me?" she inquired.

"Uh...been busy?" Serena said as she made up an excuse. Truth was she had wanted to but had, had her mind fill with thoughts of first trying to survive, then finding out about the baby and then trying to get Ian to smile again. Something was off about her British friend. After returning from his mission with Ann that had produced Javik, he had gone into hiding in the Main Battery and had basically lock himself in there only coming out for food in the last day.

"Huh...maybe you and I need to get reaquainted," she said with a laugh. "A lot has occurred in the last year or so." Tali happily grabbed Serena's wrist and dragged her down to engineering.

* * *

Keeping his yellow eyes closed, Javik continued to ignore the inquisitive stares of the human guards in the room. He knew they were only doing their job, but it had been their Commander who had brought him here; so why they felt the need to guard him he didn't understand. In his mind no time had really passed since the day he'd gone into the cryogenic pod. One moment he had been fighting and the next he had awaken to find that _human_ awakening him. She had known who he was. She wasn't from this reality, but had somehow passed from one reality to this one. He knew his own people had tried, unsuccessfully, to jump from their waring reality to a peaceful one where the reapers had already gone through and wiped out their kind. Obviously that hadn't worked. Then there had been rumors of a dimension called **The In Between,** which to him was even more confusing. He was a warrior, not a scientist who theorized about the impossible. He killed things. It was all he'd ever known. These _humans_ knew nothing of true war, but they'd learn or they'd be fated to the same fate as his people had been.

A whirling of the elevator doors opening was heard. Looking up he saw the female Commander with her counterpart in this reality. They may have been opposite secession, but their scents were one and the same. Both had an aurora of authority, power behind that authority; but only one of them knew of that power and the other was oblivious to it. Oblivious or not the female was the stronger out of the two and his people were known for liking strength above power. "Commander." he greeted through clenched teeth.

"Commander Javik," she greeted in a friendly manner. Javik watched as the human male watched her and his own reactions. Obviously this human wasn't going to introduce himself. "My name is Ann Shepard, this is John Shepard; no relation between us." She waved the guards to leave.

"I understand more than you realize," he said standing up from the floor as the human guards left. "You come from another reality in which all of this has already occurred and in which you have already destroyed the Reapers."

"Yes," was her reply.

"Then tell me why you awoke me if you already know how to stop these creatures," he said as he turned his back to her as he began looking over his pods circuitry to make sure it could be used once again.

"Because I need the best in this fight and you are the best." She paused. "In my reality you were one of the few I could give an order to take so many people with you into battle not have to worry that they'd be killed." Javik's hands paused what they had been doing. "I know you have lost many good soldiers when you last fought, but I also know of the promise you made and because of that promise I know I can give you an order and you'll never lose a single person I put under your authority."

Turning around she was greeted by a smirk upon the Prothean's face. "Then what are my orders?" he growled out.

"For now, rest and eat what is nourishing to yourself because when you'll be needed it'll be a battle where you more than likely will die."

"Agreed," he said before turning back around to his pod and as she began to leave he spoke out. "Commander."

"Yes?" he heard her reply. "Do send the jumper down here. We have things to talk about." He heard the whirling of the doors open and then close and once again he was left alone with his thoughts.


	4. Meeting the Ancient

 

**Chapter 4** : _Meeting the Ancient_

* * *

**Location** : _Attican Traverse_  
 **Date** : _October 30, 2183_  
  
Javik's eyes closed as he awaited the humans return. This reality's races were no doubt going to have the same fate as his own, but he'd be even more damned if he were just going to sit around and do nothing. He'd already come to the conclusion that he was currently weak due to the stasis pod. By what he could remember he'd be weak for three, perhaps four days before he could help these people.  
Taking a deep breath he recounted the male that had been with the female Commander when he'd awakened. He smelled differently. Yes, even with the scents of floral, fire, guns, and steal he'd smelt something was different and then he recalled what he'd been told by an elder a long time ago...

* * *

Ian looked at his food with distaste and sat his fork down. Placing his hand over his face he groaned silently and sighed. His shoulders slumped forward. It was then he saw Ann sit down across from him with a smile. "Long day, huh?" she asked.

"Very," he groaned before pushing his half eatten meal away from himself.

"I know you haven't gotten time to mourn your friend's death, but I doubt he'd want you to starve yourself," she mumbled as he took a bite of something that resembled purple.

"What's that?" he asked as his curiosity got the better of him.

"Eggs." She chuckled as Tali and Kal both took seats next to her.

"I still can't believe we found a real live Prothean in this reality as well as our own." Tali giggled.

"Too bad our Javik left after the war and didn't stick around for all this fun," Kal chuckled.

That caused both humans to cough. "Yeah. I could see that meeting going smoothly." Ann shook her head. "Jackass meet stick-up-his-ass. Stick-up-his-ass meet Jackass." That had Ian laughing.

"Come on, our Javik got better towards the end of the war," Tali defended.

"Yeah, but now we're back to square one with newly awakened Javik." She sighed. "Guess I've gotta give him a fair chance."

"Give who a fair chance?" Garrus asked as he took a seat at the end of the table with Kolyat. The deeply man had a purple goop on his plate, which looked as bad as the blue stuff on Garrus'.

"What is that shit?" Ian gagged at the smell of rotten eggs and foot odor.

The turian gave him a smile. "Apatarae, only after it's been through a blender, mixed with bianasae." He laughed as both his wife and Ian face him confused looks at the names.

"Palaven animals," Tali cleared up. "The apatarae is the turian version of the human dinosaur brontosaurus. The bianasae is much like a human deer."

Kal snortted. "I've never read about a deer weighing forty to fifty pounds or being six to seven feet tall."

"They're big deer," she cleared up.

"Smell like shit though."

Garrus chuckled. "That's because my dear husband has bone flakes in it and didn't fully cook it." This got her a finger flick from him, which caused her to laugh.

"So where's John?" Garrus asked switching the conversation from his dinner.

"Went to find Serena." Ann stated with a shrug as she finished her eggs off.

"Why?" Ian asked looking at the Commander. The woman's eyes seemed to laugh at his question.

"Because our new Prothean wishes to speak to the time traveler or jumper." She paused. "I'm still curious on how he knew about her." She leaned back in her chair. "Did anybody mention her name or her _specialty_ to him on the way to the ship?"

Ian shook his head when suddenly he paused. His eyes widened. "Shit!" he then took off out the door leaving everybody shocked.

"Guess when ya gotta go, ya gotta go." Kolyat muttered as he went back to wafting. His statement however left everyone in laughs and giggles.

* * *

Serena glared at the door that led to Javik's room. She was cracking her fingers out of nervousness. She didn't know what to say to a fifty thousand year old ancient Prothean. Taking a deep breath she walked up to the door just as the elevator door opened revealing Ian. He looked a little relieved to see her. "You okay Ian?"

"Yeah." he muttered as he walked up to her. "You haven't got in yet, have you?"

"Err...no." She looked away. "Kinda nervous. I mean...what's he want with me?"

"I think he wants to talk to me?"

Serena blinked at him before hitting him upside the head. "What! You could've told John this earlier and here I've been getting myself upset and nervous for nothing! I'm pregnant damn it! It's not healthy for the baby-" her hand flew over her mouth at that second.

Ian's eyes widened. "What!" he gasped. "How? I mean who's the-"

"Joker."

"Of the SSV-" That earned him another hit. "Ouch! Stop that!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" she paused her eyes starting to fill up with tears. "I can't help but be mad right now." She stilled her foot.

"Did you just stomp your foot?" he asked incredulously.

"Yeah?"

He laughed. "I thought girls only did that in movies!"

"Oh!" she punched his shoulder.

"Abuser!" he laughed. "I take it nobody else, but Joker knows." Wiping her eyes, she nodded. "I'll keep it a secret."

Just then the door to Javik's room opened revealing said Prothean. Serena eyes widened as she took him in. He radiated power. His eyes turned and looked them over. "I was coming to find you human," he said. "Explain to me how is it you are here. I can sense you do not belong, but you are not alone." He looked from Ian to Serena. "How is it there are two of you?"

"Uh..."

"Fate has a sick sense of humor?" Serena stated causing both men to look at her. "What? It's the truth. I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around the fact that if I wish something it'll happen."

"But with consequences." Ian finished.

"Yeah."

"And you wished to be here?" the Prothean asked sounding as if he didn't believe her.

"Actually I wished to have some sort of action in my life." She blinked. "I mean I was thinking along the lines of a job, a car, and maybe a really hot boyfriend. Now I'm a hundred years away from my old life and am now facing a Reaper threat where they'll turn all organics into goo for a new reaper." Ian coughed causing her to look at him. "What? It's true."

"That's putting it blunt." He then looked at the Prothean. "On my part, this all happened when I went into my bathroom and was being a smartass." That caused Serena to raise an eyebrow. "I was saying _Bloody Mary_ three times into the mirror and one third time a fucking asari appeared in the mirror and grabbed me. Next thing I know I'm on the Citidel." He laughed. "The really crazy part is the fact that in my reality all of this, the Citidel, the Reapers, and Shepard are all a part of a game called _Mass Effect_."

"Same here!" Serena gasped.

Javik watched the two humans for a second before suddenly grabbing them both a emerging himself into their past memories, while they got to see his...


	5. Past and Future Colide

 

**Chapter 5** : _Past and Future Collide_

* * *

_**Serena's pov** _

If you've never been on one of those rides at the fair that go in a circle at a high speed that suck you to the wall of the ride as it speeds up then you'll never experience what it felt like when Javik touched me. My stomach felt nauseous and I was dizzy. However, once I got past that, I was able to see what was going on around myself. I was on a battlefield that was on an unknown planet. The sky was red and buildings were burning. There were dead bodies everywhere. As I looked closer I saw that some looked mutated, while others looked like Protheans. My eyes widened as I realized that I was in one of Javik's memories. It was then I heard an explosion behind myself. Upon turning around I saw several dozen Protheans running at me. Their armour singed in patches. Behind them more and more explosions were occurring. Something was drawing me towards those explosions, to see what they were and so I found myself walking, at first, towards the retreating Protheans. Oddly I found myself very calm. As I came to the top of a hill that overlooked the battle I saw giant reaper ships in the red sky that seemed to lit on fire. The explosions where coming from the smaller Prothean ships as they exploded from being seared in half by the much more powerful reaper lasers that were being shot from the reapers. It was then that I truly felt a deep and penetrating fear.

That was also the moment I despised that I heard a voice giving orders. Turning my head away from the scene in front of me I saw a very familiar outline of Javik. He was fording the retreat. Hundreds of men were following his orders when suddenly the men retreating down the hill were obliterated in one swoop of a laser beam from a reaper. I watched Javik look on in disbelief, at first, and then give out a deep war cry and ran forward with the rest of his men, who were still alive and took on the hordes of mutated creatures that now were headed towards them.

* * *

_**Ian's pov** _

My head was pounding as I opened my eyes. Upon opening them I saw that I was in a jungle of some type. I however heard something moving behind myself and went to grab my gun from my waist only to grasp at nothing.

Looking down I saw that I was dressed in strange armour. It looked a lot like Javik's, only instead of it being red, mine was a deep green color. It was then I also looked at my hands and saw that they were no longer mine. They were three fingered, much like the Protheans. I also could see much better than I usually could. I then turned towards the noise I had heard earlier and saw Javik there pointing a gun at me.

"You have betrayed the Empire General," he said.

"You know nothing, youngling," I heard myself say. "The Empire died long ago when the Reapers came a thousand years ago."

"I know nothing!" he snarled at me. "I know you sent me and my men into the fray expecting us all to die!" he growled. "I watched three hundred of my best men die in seconds after I sounded the retreat." He stepped closer. "I saw your ship fly away and the reapers parted for your ship to pass!"

I then heard myself chuckle. "Good, then you know more than you should." I turned and looked at the jungles and mountains of the world I was on. "You are the best warrior I have ever trained Javik. I trained you to be the best so that when this day came you wouldn't waste time in killing me." Looking up at the sky I saw the blues mixing with yellows and reds. "As with the sun setting on this world, it is time for me to be down. Kill me Javik! Or I will kill you." I turned and rushed at him. The gun went off.

* * *

**Location** : _Normandy_

**Date** : _October 30, 2183_

Javik released both humans from his control. Both seemed disoriented at first but as their eyes focused he realized that they were once again safe on the Normandy. As he had touched them to show them that this was no game, but quite real, he had also gleaned from them memories of what they had said. These two were from two very different, but similar realities. While one had yet to realize what he was to do in this life, the other was afraid to use her new found ability because of the consequences the came from using it. He then spoke to them. "You were destined to come here."

"What do you mean?" Ian inquired still reeling from the memory Javik had shared.

"A prophecy that had been found by one of our scientists years before the war came about." He looked at both of them. "With a wish, salvation will be granted. With bravery, the war will be won. With power, the enemy will run. With courage, hero's will fight together. With vengeance, a people will be remembered. With the past, the future will be cleared so that others will no longer suffer." Both humans looked at each other. "When these words were discovered in an ancient temple it had been thought that they meant nothing. However, when the reapers came it was believed that these words were a prophecy that would bring victory against them. We never found the ones that it described though."

"A wish?" Ian looked at Serena. "You believe that's her?" the ancient nodded.

"You are bravery," Serena stated as she pointed at Ian, who snorted in disbelief.

"Yes," Javik stated.

"Who's courage?" Ian asked, still not believing this.

"The female commander," was Javik's answer.

Ian raised an eyebrow. "Power?" he asked.

"Kaiden?" Serena asked

"He's dead," Ian stated. "John?"

"I'd sooner say Jack then John," Serena bartered.

"True. She is powerful, but she's not on the ship, is she?" Ian asked Serena, who shrugged. Looking back at Javik, Ian asked again. "So who's vengence and the past?"

"The past and vengeance could be one person," Javik answered. "If so, then it is I."

"This is just too weird," Ian said shaking his head. "Me being a part of some ancient prophecy.." he sighed.

"And looking in a mirror and being pulled into this reality by an Asari isn't weird?" Serena asked, her eyes darting at him to counter that one.

"Touche," he said as he walked backed towards the elevator and left.

Turning back to Javik, Serena watched the ancient turn towards the door to the cargo bay. "What if you're wrong about the last one?"

He paused and looked over his shoulder towards her. "Then we're already dead." He the continued into the room and the door shut behind him, leaving Serena standing there to think about what had been said and of what she'd been shown.


	6. Fight!

**Chapter 6** : _Fight!_

* * *

 **Location** : _Thessia Goddess Temple_  
 **Date** : _November 20, 2183_

I knew my mouth was gaping wide open at the beautifully crafted murals in the windows of a goddess. "Stop gaping around and watched the door." I heard Javik growl at me and Ian who I noticed was looking around as well.

Liara looked at John. "He's quite rude," she muttered to him, but her voice echoed throughout the entire room so everybody including Javik heard her.  
"You would be too if you were on ice for fifty thousand years." John smirked at her glare.

"He doesn't need to be," she grumbled as they approached the statues, which left Ian and I to watch the entrance. "Fifty credits to the first one who kills a banshee that comes through the door?"

"We've got a better chance at shooting a husk," he grumbled.

"Is that a no?" I turned towards him as he smirked.

"Make it a hundred." That caused me to chuckle. It was right then that the entrance doors exploded quite litterally. The blast caused both Ian and I to fall right on our butts. When the dust cleared it revealed a man with slightly glowing eyes wearing a tight black and white suit and mask on his face. A yellow emblem on his chest and shoulders. "Cerberus," I heard Ian say as if it was a curse word. Both of us began shooting at the man, but none of our shots hit him because of his shield.

"My turn," he spoke and then clapped his hands together causing a biotic shockwave to hit us both and flinging us away from him and our weapons. He walked right passed us without looking back.

 _Ow._ I thought as I tried to lift my head. Only to look up at no other than Miranda Lawson. My eyes widened at the pistol she had pointed at my head. Behind her were a dozen or so men. I could hear Joker's voice in my ear. "Shit, shit, shit...stay calm babe. Ann's ten minutes away."

I swallowed slowly. "Serena Lavargus," she said my name with such ease. As if she knew everything about me. "It's so nice to finally meet you. Though I'm surprised. The Illusive Man paid a high price for you to be either brought in or killed by an assassin. Apparently, there's more to you than we know, if you can survive an assassination attempt."

"You have no idea," I replied trying to stall her. With that gun pointed at me like it was it seemed like the ten minutes had already passed us by.  
"Four minutes babe." I heard Joker whisper in my ear.

"Originally I thought I'd be the one to kill you, but he had other plans." She paused and looked at Ian. Then we found out about a second _jumper_.

"Jumper?" I asked.

"That's what you are. A time jumper, isn't it?" She turned back to me and I saw Ian's still form.

Relief flooded me. _They don't know._ "Y-Yeah..." I admitted, but lied. Technically I was more than that.

She smiled. "I'm curious. Why would somebody from the past come here and how did they do it?" She stalked over to me.

I laughed nervously. "Look lady how I got here."

"Liar!" She accused me. "You must know!" She pointed her gun at me. "Stand up!"

Suddenly guns at the entrance went off as Ann and her crew joined us. I kicked Miranda's feet out from under her and ran for it. I turned just in time to see Ian shoot off a shot at her before making a beeline for Ann. It was then that the temple floor began to shake and fall into a deep abyss below. In my ear I could her Joker saying, "Run babe." I swore right then that I was first gonna kiss his sorry ass afterwards and then hit him, gently(not too gently), for being late.

"Kai Leng lets go!" I heard a now wounded Miranda yell as the missing flooring separated us from them and them from John's group.

It was then I spotted the man running towards her the floor vanishing from behind him. I watched Ann tap the side of her ear. "Now," she spoke. A single shot rang out from the balcony above John and the man named Kai Leng fell lifelessly to the floor. Miranda got away. Looking up above John's group was Garrus who pulled his face away from his scope and waved at us.

"You knew, didn't you?" I accused her.

Ann sighed. "I warned John and all he did was take two extra people." She glared at John. "Now we've gotta get over to his body and retrieve that VI." With that she turned on her heel, Kolyat and Reegar behind her.

I turned towards Ian who was looking at the now ruined temple. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He turned to me. "Just wondering what Rebecca would've thought if she knew about this."

I touched his shoulder. "I know one thing."

"Hmm?" he hummed.

"She'd be proud of what you're doing. As cheesy as that sounds." I shrugged.

He looked at me and smiled. "Thanks." he went to follow Ann. Taking one last look at the inside of the temple I turned and walked out just in time to see Ian shoot a Banshee dead. He turned and smiled at me, causing me to glare at him. "You owe me."

* * *

Once on the Normandy, I decided to postpone Joker's punishment for being late until after I showered, but first I had Chakwas fussing over me like a mother hen who's chick had gotten hurt. "I'm fine Doc, really!" I smiled and laughed as she did one last scan.

"You are pregnant my dear, a shockwave is no laughing matter. You could've been seriously hurt or you could've lost an arm or leg or..." I giggled as she went off on naming everything that could've, but didn't happen. After she cleared me as being fine I quickly showered in the crew showers and dressed quickly in the locker room before anybody could see me.

I then walked up the CIC to the bridge and kissed Joker on the lips. "Wow what was that for?" he smiled my favorite smile. I looked at him as seductively as I could, which caused him to smile even more and was about to kiss me again when I slapped him over the head, thus killing the mood. "Hey! Ow! What the hell was that-"

"That was for almost getting me killed!" I yelled at him. "You said ten minutes away. More like fifteen or twenty!" I glare at him. "What would ya have done had she shot me right before Ann walked in! Huh?"

"Hey! It's not my fault a bunch of banshee's attacked them!" he yelled back.

"Bullshit!" I pointed my finger at him. "You landed them there!"

"It was the closest place to the temple!" he defended. "What? Did ya want me to bring the Normandy in and shoot the damn place with the Thanix? Or did you want me to drop Shep on the roof, which in both cases could've hurt you and our baby!"

By now everybody on the CIC was listening and I could literally feel their stares. This of course included Ann and her crew and our resident Prothean, who lately had been getting on my nerves with his condescending words. "Yes...no...I don't know!" I growled slightly.

He gave me a blank stare. "Uh...let me get this right...you want me to risk everybody's lives to save yours?"

That one caused me to blink blankly at him. "Not when you say it that way!" I yelled.

"Shepard, are all pregnant humans like her right now?" I heard Garrus ask learily.

"Having second thoughts?" she asked

"Not quite."

My face turned pink. "Oh!" I half growled before kissing him again. "Room. Now!" with that I ran quickly to our room leaving a doubfounded Joker behind.

"Huh?"

"Joker," EDI began. "That was a signal that she's forgiven you and wishes to make amends."

"Make amen-" at that moment the lightbulb came on in Jeff's brain. _Make Up Sex!_ it yelled at him. Standing up Jeff looked at the Commander.

"Uh...Shep-"

"Go." She nodded towards where Serena and vanished. Watching him walk away she called out, "Congrats on the baby!"

This time it was Jeffs turn to flush. "Thanks Commander." He too vanished down the corridor to his room. An hour or so later when the couple re-emerged from their hiding, Jeff wore the biggest smile anybody ever had seen on his face; and as for Serena, she just smiled went on with what she usually did when preparing for a fight.


	7. Tiptree

 

**Chapter 7** : _Tiptree_

* * *

**Date** : _November 20, 2183_  
 **Location** : _Thessia  
_  
John Shepard walked up behind Joker, who looked a little smug since coming back from his break with Serena. Noticing John behind him, Joker spoke. "So Thessia huh? I'm guessing the asari wish they had fewer dancers and more commandos right about now." He paused and looked at the non amused Commander. "Too soon?"

Irritated at what Jeff had just said John spoke with anger in his voice. "In case you hadn't noticed we just lost a few million people. This isn't the time for jokes!"

Tapping the console screens Jeff began waving his hands to find what he was looking for. Bringing up a tiny image of a small farming planet he spoke back. "You see this?" John looked at the image over Jeff's shoulder. "This is Tiptree. A little colony out in the ass end of nowhere. My Dad, or at least this reality's Joker's Dad, lives there. So does his sister. Reapers rolled in a couple days ago." The holographic display showed images of three larger Reaper ships attacking the tiny planet. "So you can generally be aware that I know there's a war going on Commander."

"So why the jokes?" John demanded as he stepped back from Jeff's chair.

"Because EDI says that according to your armor's metabolic scans, you're under more stress now that than durring the Blitz years ago." John looked at the pilot, shocked that he knew about that. "And the last time I had a briefing with Anderson or Hackett they told me to take care of both you and Ann. Those two are leading a resistance on Earth and they're worried about you two and I'm supposed to help."

John looked down before looking back at Jeff. "I appreciate the thought Joker, but I'm fine."

"The hell you are," Jeff scoffed. "You're like half robot right now." Ann was standing back watching this and listening to Joker. He looked at her mournfully. "It's my fault what happened to you ma'am. You came back for me when the Collectors attacked the original Normandy years ago. You died and I lived."

Ann looked at him and smiled. "I couldn't leave the best pilot in the fleet behind, now could I?"

Jeff coughed. "Yeah well I guess that would've looked bad on your report."

"Come on," Ann said as she laid a hand on his shoulder. "We've got work to do." With that she walked away with John a few steps behind her.

"One of these days you've gotta tell me what happened to you." He looked at her face as the war room door opened.

"Yeah, maybe we can have drinks when I do tell you." She looked at Javik who was talking to the Prothean VI that they'd managed to save from Cerberus. "What's it say?"

"That the Catalyst is the Citadel and that the Crucible will only work if the two are placed together." The ancient stated his eyes wide with this new knowledge.

"How do they work together?" Ann asked.

The ancient looked at the female. "You say you've beaten these demons before, why not try your way again?"

"My way was finding their stronghold hidden in what was once their creator's homeworld. They'd created a Dyson sphere in which they drew their power to keep a world of machines alive. Much like how the Geth back themselves up with a server, the Reapers did the same. They built a machine world that not only fixed broken Reapers ships, but to build new ones that had already been destroyed. A never ending cycle. However, when we came to this reality we found that the relay that would take us to this destination is gone. It didn't exist in this realty."

"So this is our only option?" John inquired.

"It would seem so." Javik replied somewhat sadly. "The Citadel's relay will react like a conduit and pass an energy throughout the entire galaxy, which will end the Reapers. However the Citadel is currently in the control of the Reapers. In order for the Crucible to even work we _must_ gain back control over the Citadel."

"That will be a war in and of itself." John sighed.

"Exactly." The ancient looked at the two human Commanders. "But I believe we have something they do not."

"Oh?" John crossed his arms over his chest "And what is that?"

"For once I believe it is hope." The room was silent. "I believe a prophecy that many years ago was said to come to past is in it's beginning stages of doing so."

"You're talking about Serena," Ann responded, shocked that the Prothean would want to involve a pregnant woman.

"She is one element of this prophecy." He paused as the VI vanished into the ship's systems so that it could be tapped into by both Commanders. "You both can now gain access to the VI with your personal consoles."

"You said one element. What are the others?" John asked.

He looked at both of them. "The prophecy that was found many years ago by my people stated that with a wish, salvation will be granted. With bravery, the war will be won. With power, the enemy will run. With courage, hero's will fight together. With vengeance, a people will be remembered. With the past, the future will be cleared so that others will no longer suffer." Both humans looked at each other. "When these words were discovered in an ancient temple, it had been thought that they meant nothing. However, when the reapers came it was believed that these words were a prophecy that would bring victory against them. We never found the ones that it described though." He paused. "That is until now. I believe the wish will come from the girl. Immense bravery from one Ian Shaw. Courage is you, Shepard." He nodded towards Ann. "I do not know who the power will come from."

"The last two are?"

The ancients four eyes narrowed at John. "Me."

"Figures," John sighed. "Okay, but while you have this prophecy we're fighting a war that seems to have no end in sight. We've got the turians on our side and the krogans because of Ares and we just gained the hannar who are sending once of their best fighters to meet us at any requested destination."

Ann's omni-tool pinged, she looked down and smiled. "Commander?" came Javik's voice.

Looking up she smiled at John. "You asked Hackett to build another Normandy?"

"Serena's idea." he stated.

Chuckling, Ann continued. "Yeah well, the quarians helped in finishing it. That's the good news. The bad is that it's in port at Tiptree and another bad thing is it's getting worse there."

"Then we head there, pick up my new ship and separate," John said heading to the door.

"No. Separating is bad," Javik began, but was stopped when Ann held up her hand.

"For once John's right." She began to explain to Javik. "If we separate, John can get the asari and the salarians to help. I'll try to get the volus and the elcor to help."

"What about the Hanar representative?" Javik inquired.

"We will tell him to meet us at Tiptree but to be careful because it's hot with Reapers."

"Sounds good to me." With that John left the room.

Ann turned towards the ancient and smirked. "You know, I think I like this reality's version of you."

The Prothean seemed to be shocked by this admission. "Why?" he inquired.

"The Commander Javik back home always came off as an ass to me because he couldn't get past the fact that the primatives were the ones to defeat his enemy and the fact the Liara wouldn't leave him alone with her inquisitive questions probably didn't help either."

"This Liara is the same asari that is on this ship?" he asked, looking a bit tense. Ann shook her head no which made him relax.

"The one onboard is three years younger than the one back in my reality." She chuckled as she watched the Prothean begin to digest this information. He then nodded and left leaving her to chuckle just as Garrus walked in.

"Something funny?" he inquired as he pulled her close to his chest.

She hummed as she leaned her forehead against his. "Just thinking," she said with a smile.

"Of happy thoughts." His question for some reason made her blush. "Oh, those kinds of thoughts."

"I wasn't thinking about _that_ , well not until you came in." She smirked.

"Oh," he chuckled. "Good save Shepard."

"Thought so myself," she said as she walked away. "But we do have twelve hours to spare." She turned towards him and winked before leaving. Seconds later the crew could've seen a turian running after Ann Shepard or they could've had anybody actually been watching them.


	8. Game Plan

**Chapter 8** : _Game Plan_

* * *

**Date** : _November 24, 2183_  
 **Location** : _Tiptree system_

I looked out into the obyss that was the Tiptree System. In a few hours we'd be arriving to Tiptree. As I was staring out the window I heard the door behind me open and close and saw a young turian female who looked a bit annoyed. It seemed she was upset about something and I wasn't certain if I should be in the same room with an upset female turian. Having lived on the Citadel for nearly two years I'd barely ever come into contact with an female turian. Those that I have usually were always mad, which only made me think that maybe that was why males seemed upset about something all the time. "Uh...hi." the female said. Her harmonics made her voice sound beautiful and kind reminded me of my sister.

"Hi." was my reply.

"I'm Solana, Garrus' sister." This caused my eyes to widen. I knew when Ann and her ship came through to this reality that there had been a lot of people aboard. It had never occurred to me that Garrus had family onboard. "You're Serena, right?" I nodded. Her mandibles spread into a smile. "Garrus says you're a good shot and probably the best student he's ever had. Of course that was a long time ago he'd said that." Her fingers were twitching.

"Are you okay?" I inquired.

"My husband and I had an argument." she sighed as she looked out at the nebula. "It's quite beautiful. Do you know what makes those colors of the Widow Nebula?"

"Yeah, different types of gasses." That caused Solana to blink at me. She was about to begin giving me a lecture; I could see it in her facial features, when EDI's holo projected body appeared in the room. _Saved by EDI._ I thought with a smile.

* * *

Javik looked up at me as I entered the War Room and growled softly. "What's his problem?" I asked Ann.

"Chakwas thinks he's in heat." She said with a chuckle.

"Spirits." I heard Garrus curse. "How'd that happen?"

"Well being on ice for fifty thousand years cou-"

"I'm not in heat you damn primitives!" He snarled which made Ann shut up.

"Carolyn says your hormones are raging an-"

"I. Am. Not. In. Heat." His snarl punctuated each word.

"I don't believe you." Ann responded only to have the Prothean litterally jump to his feet and slam her into the wall. His hand had a tight grip on her throat, when suddenly his raging snarling turned into a slight purr. "I'm not taking you on this mission Javik. You are in no condition to fight and you know it. You're not thinking rationally." He pulled away with his head bowed and nodded before leaving the room.

"Why am I in here?" I asked

"Because we may need our lucky little medic," she said this with a smirk.

"You know I'm pregnant, right?" There were chuckles between the two of them.

"It was kinda hard not to hear your argument with Joker the other day." Garrus smirked, which caused my face to heat up.

"We have reports saying that there's very little going on groundside of Tiptree." Ann began as a holo popped up on the War Table. I looked at the tiny planet that had dozens of green blips flying around it. "We got a message from a Captain Kasolve that they saw a ship called the Kilauea and Kilamanjaro destroy a reaper ship." She smirked. "John says that the latter of the two is controlled by his aunt Captain Hannah Shepard and says she's a big renegade when she wants to be. She's also the one who's saved the former SSV Normandy's crew back on the Citadel a while back." There was a clanging chuckle from Garrus. "What?" she asked him.

He turned his head away from the projector. "Just trying to imagine Harbinger's shock when not one Shepard, but three Shepard's escaped his clutches."

She smirked. "He probably said, Damn it, those organics are pissing me off." she laughed.

I just shook my head. "What are we going to do about Javik?" I asked. Ann shrugged.

"Find Liara and tell her to make him _embrace eternity_?" Garrus sugested. Both Ann and I smirked.

"Okay, cleared that up." Ann went back to the map. "We're heading towards the shipyards that are on the other side of Tiptree. Joker says that his other self and Normandy crew are in place and awaiting final preperations."

"Probably mostly waiting for John and his crew." I stated. "Alberdeen wants to know if he staying or going 'cause I think he likes this ship and it's big guns."

"John is going to need to take him, Tali, Wrex, and-"

"Ian?" I asked.

"No, Ian stays. Kolyat will go with him." She paused "I'd like to find Thane and Jack in this reality and see if they'll help."

"Jack won't, but if she does she'll want that academy destroyed." Garrus said looking over at Ann.

"Shit, I forgot that." Ann paused. "Oh well. I don't want Cerberus to get ahold of her. Same goes for Thane."

"Uh, speaking of Cerberus, I think we need to watch out for them." I said quietly, Ann nodded.

"I need to find Oriana. If we find her and keep her aboard, Miranda may back off. With Kai Leng out of way we may be able to dodge the Illusive Man...for awhile at least."

"So the plan is get the new Normandy out of the docks on Tiptree, get John's aunt to help us, kill the Reapers and dodge Cerberus while saving the galaxy." Garrus said with a smirk.

Ann chuckled. "Yep."

"Okay just checking. Also I am so picking next years honeymoon vacation."

"You're still mad about Ilos?"

"Not at all, just would like less shooting and more loving next year is all." They both were looking at each other with heated gazes.

I chuckled at the two of them. Both looked at me with a smirk. "Yeah, I'm totally not getting involve in that argument." and walked away from them.


	9. Relief

**Chapter 9** : _Relief_

* * *

**Date** : _November 24, 2183_  
 **Location** : _Tiptree_ _  
_  
I sighed as I sat down in the co-pilot's seat next to the shuttle pilot Steven Cortez. He was the funniest guy I knew, next to Jeff. He smirked as he looked at my heavy looking armor that Ann said I _had_ to wear. I felt very heavy. It was purple, green and black with an N7 logo on the chest with a red cross symbol under it and on my right arm. I placed my visor over my left eye and looked at back at him. "What?" I asked, really trying not to look upset.

"Not saying a thing," he replied.

"Good, 'cause I'd really have to shoot ya, only to have fix ya back up again." I looked out the cockpit window away from him only to hear a snort behind me.

John smirked as I looked back at him. "Since when has that stopped you from kickin' somebody's ass?"

"Since I became pregnant," I muttered with a pout.

John sat down and sighed. "At least you get an easy mission. I haven't spoken to my aunt in years."

"Why's that?" Ann asked as she and Garrus took their spot opposite of him.

"We're too much alike," was his only explanation, which got him certain looks from both Jane and Garrus."She's a pain in my side and I'm pain in her ass," he said. "We haven't gotten along since my father's death. She got rid of me the second she found out I was a biotic. Tried to get back into my life when I turned twenty-five." He paused and then sighed. "It's been five years since we last spoke."

"Then it's time you spoke again," Ann said as she leaned back. "After we get the Normandy SR-2, we got to find your mom and talk to her-"

"You can talk, I'm-" John interjected, but was cut off by Garrus.

"Going with us." The turian gave John his most fearsome look, which I'd come to call his "Archangel look".

The two stared for a good five minutes before John sighed in defeat. "Fine. But I'm warning you, she's not the easiest to like."

With that, the conversation stopped as we entered the atomosphere of Tiptree. The blue/green planet was quite beautiful looking. Tiny farms and villages were spattered everywhere on it's surface. It reminded me of home, my home, my time, and my earth. As much as I missed everything I left behind in 2010, I couldn't help but also be happy. If none of this had ever happened to me, how would this have ended? Bad or good? I guess I'd never know, but what I did know was this: nobody was going to take my new life away from me.

So as we docked with the dry docks that held the new Normandy I felt a renewed sense of purpose hit me, and it felt good.

* * *

In all his days as a pilot, Jeff _Joker_ Moreau could always say that his ship was always flyable when it came back from a mission. It's crew would be a little space sick if he'd decided to play a dirty joke and remove the gravity on board just as they'd hit atomosphere of a planet or on good days they'd arrive safe and sound. He'd never lost a single person or got into a firefight that didn't mean they wouldn't all come home safely, until now. Sovereign changed everything. He'd tried to keep his girl from going down as long as he could to allow as many crew member to get into escape pods. Angie had grabbed his arm and dislocated his shoulder in the process and the both of them and Pressley had managed to just get into the pod and get off the _SSV Normandy_ just as it exploded. The shockwave from the explosion had sent the pod flying into the outer wards of the Citadel. They'd been a part of the lucky few who'd survived from the ship. It had taken them twenty minutes, due to his injuries, to get to the wards port. It was there they, with others from the Normandy, had stolen a shuttle and maneuvered it through a large gaping hole in the side the Citadel and escaped. They had been hailed by the _SSV Kilomanjaro_ and from the Serpent Nebula the left for Tiptree.

Jeff looked at his newly constructed Normandy. She was twice the size as the first. Bigger weapon systems, badder guns, and better stealth than the first. She was equipped with long range EMP missiles to damage shields and take out a ship's engines. She also had nukes onboard, though he couldn't fathom why they'd need those old fashioned weapons. "Flight Lieutenant, how does she look?" came a very commanding voice behind him, one he'd been associating with his ever present migrains that could make Alenko's look like kids play.

He groaned as he turned and looked at the slightly graying and newly promoted Admiral Hannah Shepard. "She looks fine ma'am," he replied.

"Fine? Only _fine,_ Flight Lieutenant Moreau?" she scoffed. "She's more than that and I should know."

"Yes ma'am," he said as he watched her enter the ship's airlock and sighed as he began hobbling towards the ship.

"Jeff!" came a yell from behind him. Upon turning he saw the ever delightful Angie and his thirteen year old baby sister Hilary Moreau. Bright green eyes looked up at him with awe and he knew his sister was about to go off about how much she wanted to be a pilot and everything.

"Angie says you're going to be leaving soon!" she pouted, causing him to smirk.

"Yep," was his only answer to this.

"Can I come?" Her eyes twinkled with mischief.

"You'll have to ask my CO, but I'm certain he or she will say no," he said sounding confident in his answer.

"Aw, please?" He laughed at her pouting lip and smiled.

"Joker!" He heard a very familiar voice yell out which caused him to jump slightly and had his back going straight as, well, a crooked arrow in his mind.

He then heard laughter and turned to see Commander John Shepard laughing his ass off at Jeff going to attention so quickly, while Ann Shepard smirked. "Shit, Shep; I thought you were your Mom."

"My aunt is here?" Jeff watched as John's eyes darkened.

He nodded and pointed to the ship. "She's inspecting the ship as we speak."

"Figures," he muttered.

"The ship looks fine Mr. Moreau, but a lot of wasted space-" she stopped abruptly at seeing John standing there with Ann next to him. Her eyes gazed over Ann for no more than a second before going back and memorizing her sons look. ' _He looks tired,'_ was her first thought followed by. ' _Thank God he's alive.'_ She quickly hid her emotions and walked up to him. The two stared at each other for a minute. "Hell with it," she said and pulled him into the tightest hug she could possibly give him with his armour still on.

Ann saw the shocked look on John's face. Obviously he hadn't thought his aunt would be worried about him. Obviously he'd been wrong.

"Aunt-Ma'am," he corrected himself and pulled back to look at her giving her a look of confusion. "Are-"

"Damn it John," she cursed. "I thought I lost you. I've been sending you messages for weeks." Relief gave way to anger. "I know we haven't spoken in years but still..." she paused and looked at Ann."Who's she?"

Ann now looked worried. She didn't need an angery aunt/admiral coming after her now. "This is Ann Shepard," John spoke, about to explain everything. "She's-" he was interrupted again by his mother.

"Your cousin," Hannah sighed with relief. "You're Jonathan's other sister's daughter. Jonathan, being my little brother and your mother being my little sister. Correct?"

Ann blinked. "Yes ma'am," was the only reply that could come out of her mouth. The Admiral turned back towards the ship. John looked at Ann with a raised eyebrow. She shrugged.

"John," Hannah began. "Whatever is going on I want you to know you have my full support."

"You haven't even heard what I have to say," he said this sounding a bit shocked.

"I'm your aunt and I refuse to lose you because of a stupid argument." She turned and looked at him. "She's a good ship, she'll get you far, but you'll need help with whatever you and your-" she looked at Ann. " _cousin_ are planning. When you are ready, the crew of the _Kilimanjaro_ and my fleet here will be ready to help you."

John smiled. "Thank-you Admiral, Aunt Hannah." He watched as she smiled and then walked away from the ship. "That was-"

"Easier than you thought," Ann finished his thought for him. John nodded. "Now we need a crew."

Jeff hobbled up the ramp. "That's the easy part. Tiptree is filled with former soldiers and Alliance techies, and we do have Tali, though she left a month ago to chat with her old man about an idea she had."

"So we talk to the old soldiers and techs," John said walking up to Jeff, only to look down at a young girl.

"I'm Hilary, Jeffrey's sister," she said. "Are you his CO?" Jeff groaned, while John nodded. This caused the young girl to smile and her eyes twinkle with mischief.


	10. Recruiting Pt. 1

**Chapter 10** : _Recruiting Pt 1_

* * *

**Date** : _December 1, 2183_  
 **Location** : _Omega_  
  
Ian yawned as he walked into the War Room. Inside, both Ann Shepard and Garrus were waiting for him, along with the newly awakened tank-bred krogan, Grunt, who looked slightly miffed about something. Garrus looked up from his data pads and smirked. "About time Shaw, thought I'd have to send a search party for you."

Ian chuckled. Over the last few months he'd become friends with this Garrus. He was a bit wiser than his old partner, whom he still missed. "Nope, just thought I'd be a paining yer arse today and be slow."

Garrus laughed. "Guess I'll have to kick your ass later." Both chuckled at that. Ann shook her head at her husband and his new friend. "Enough of that; we have work to get done." He turned on the holo projector in the center of the table. "This is Omega," he said as the image came up of the station. "I'm sure you're curious as to why we're here. I'll tell you. In my reality I came here after an incident that occurred in my time. While here I created a team of vigilantes. These people are here right now and I want to pick 'em up."

"Are they worthy for me to fight by?" Grunt asked gruffly while leaning against the metal wall opposite of Ann.

"Yes," was Garrus' only response. "Their names are Erash, Grundan, Melanis, Monteague, Laet, Mierin, Vortash, Butler, Sidonis, and Weaver." Everybody had noticed his slight growl at the mention of Sidonis.

"What are their specialties?" Ian asked. "Just want to know if we actually need them on our team is all."

Chuckling, Garrus continued. "Erash is a turian male. A biotic, which is rare for turians. Also is a sniper and enjoys human literature." That got a chuckle from Ian. "Monteague is a drell male and was the squad medic. Mierin is a slightly nervous salarian. Was part of the infiltration squad." He paused and looked at Ann. "Grundan is a batarian." That made Ann look nervous. "He was our tech expert. Doesn't really talk much, but always acts seriously." He rolled down to the next one on his list. "Laet is always cheery and a borderline cocky turian and was in charge of the squad's equipment, armour and weapons. Also, he produces his own gadgets for the squad to use." He tapped the image and smirked as a memory popped up because if the image of his old squadmate. "Melanis..." He paused and looked up. "She's a turian female who specialized in stealth and infiltration but she's also an extremely competent fighter in a full on battle. Doesn't trust very easily, but wants to do good." He thought for a moment. "If you wanna know about the others I have their profiles right here on this pad." He sat the data pad down on the table, only for Grunt to snag it. "I trusted them before, I'm sure I can trust them again."

"So who's going down to get 'em?" Ian asked, knowing already that he was going down. "Ann is taking a team down to get the two salarians. They're the easiest ones. Ian you're coming with me to get everybody else."

There was a snort from Grunt. "And what about me!" he cried out indignantly. "I wanna kill something!"

Ann smirked. "Grunt, you and Grim are coming with me."

Both Ian and Garrus looked at her with wide eyes. "You're going to give both Mierin and Weaver heart attacks," Ian accused her.

"No, she'll startle 'em, but they may refuse to help us," Garrus replied but shrugged and looked at his wife. "I trust you though."

She smirked. "You better." she then walked out with Grunt following her.

Ian watched the Commander leave and then turned back to Garrus. "So who do we go after first?"

"Monteague," he quickly replied as they both headed down to the elevator. "He's friends with Melanis. You convince him in joining. I'll convice Melanis."  
Ian turned to look at Garrus. "Will he listen?" The elevator door opened to the cargo bay where the shuttle was waiting for them. The shuttle pilot already had the shuttle engines warming up.

"Yeah, but Mel will be harder to convince." The two vanished into the shuttle.

* * *

**Location** : _Purgatory_

John looked out the shuttle window as Cortez settles the shuttle at the Purgatory airlock. Ann had told him not to trust the warden and that he was as crooked as they came. He put on his helmet and looked over at both Aberdeen and Ashley, both of which had their weapons ready. "Ready when you are Skipper," came Ashley's voice over the comm.

"Right. Remember, no giving up your weapons and no talking." He paused as he opened the shuttle door and entered Purgatory through the airlocks. The two guards standing there were humans. "Commander John Shepard, I'm here for Jack."

Both men looked at him as if he was crazy. "You sure you want her sir?" one asked.

"She's crazier than an L2 gone nuts," the other responded.

"Hackett wants her," was his only response.

The two men looked down their terminals. "If you say so," the first said. "We'll need your weapons."

"It's policy," said the other.

"Yeah, and as Spectre I have a policy of never handing them over."

Both men went to pull theirs out when they heard the clicking of metal shoes on the metal flooring. Turning they saw their boss come out of the elevator. John raised an eyebrow at the female turian standing before him. "I'm Warden Olg'nar," she said. "You must be Shepard. Follow me."

"Thought this place was run by the Blue Suns," he said as they began walking down the halls to Jack's cell, hopefully.

The turian smirked. "They do. I'm being replaced by some damn male. They say I'm not harsh enough on these prisoners. In truth, they want me to use brutality and torture to these people."

"Do you know why we're here?" he asked.

"Yes, Admiral Hackett told me that you and your cousin are assembling together teams and going to train them in order to take back the Citadel from these Reapers." She paused and looked at him. "I've been asked by him to help you. I have a cousin living on Phros Niam, it's a turian controlled blackwater planet. He's a general with over a hundred ships under his command. His name is General Zuris Olg'nar. He was apart of the First Contact War, tell him his little cousin Sarrana sent you to him." They continued on their way to the cryogenic cells. "This is where we keep her." She looked at him. "Stay here." She then walked up to a cryogenic tube which was thawing. It opened up to reveal a still, sleeping Jack.

Aberdeen smirked and said quietly."Looks like sleeping beauty isn't waking up." Just then, the very tattooed woman opened her eyes. Her body flared with her biotics and she began struggling against the chains that held her arms down, when suddenly a gun went off and a dart implanted itself into her neck followed by two more gun shots and two more darts. Jack stopped struggling and passed out.

Shepard walked over to the warden on the floor, who was cleaning her tranquilizer gun. "She's all yours Shepard." The turian female then sauntered away from him. "When my replacement comes I'll come looking for you and see if I can help you out!" she yelled back at him and vanished beyond the elevator doors to her office.

John looked at the now passed out Jack and sighed. "Pick her up Aberdeen and let's get out of here."

Once they were back aboard the _SSV Normandy 2,_ Jack was taken to the new medbay. Chakwas scanned her and smiled. "Her body is already processing the traquilizer and pushing it out of her system. She'll be up and about in five to six hours."

John nodded. "Thanks Doc." He smiled as he went to leave but paused when he saw Aberdeen staring at the girl. "What is it man?"

"I know her," he stated.

"From where?"

John watched his friends features scrunch up into confusion. "I don't know, but I wanna find out."

John nodded. "Stay here and watch her." He then headed off towards the comm room to call Ann.


	11. Recruiting Pt. 2

**Chapter 11** : _The Recruiting Pt 2_

* * *

**Date** : _December 1, 2183_  
 **Location** : _Omega_

Ann looked around what was the cesspool of the galaxy. This reality's Omega was no better than her own. It smelled liked urine and death and the famous Afterlife was still the center of the station's lifeblood. As soon as she'd come aboard the station with Grunt and Grim one of Aria's goons had confronted them. Grim, who once worked for Aria in her reality almost six hundred years ago had recognized the batarian slaver at once as Aria's second Devix N'vor, or at least that was what he was called in her reality. Here in this one he was nothing more than Aria's fetcher and did Aria's bidding. So now instead of looking for the two salarians like she should have been she was following this man into Afterlife because Aria wanted to speak with the _female_ Shepard. She just prayed Garrus was having better luck than she was.

* * *

Garrus had the pilot dock on the southern side of the Omega station that way he'd be sure to avoid Aria and her goons and be able to get to where he hoped Monteague would be. He looked back at the human male, Ian. He wasn't sure about this male, even though he'd seen how well he could handle himself. He still had a few doubts about him. He seemed distracted still by the other Garrus' demise and he guessed that would be kind of hard for the guy. It wasn't every day you saw your best buddy shot and killed, though since the Reapers invaded he'd guess it was even more common than before.

The two of them exited the shuttle and made a beeline for the drell bar on this side of Omega that Garrus had seen Monteague go into a few times before in the other reality and just hoped this payed off. Upon entering the bar Garrus saw that it seemed things were slow today and saw only two or three drell sitting at the bar itself and only one at the booth. Smiling he headed for the booth, giving Ian the signal to stay where he was. Once reaching the booth he spoke. "Monteague?"

The drell looked mournful as his head lifted from its bowed position. "Yes." He spoke in a slurred nature. He was obviously drunk and very much so.

"I'm Garrus Vakarian; I've been looking for you," he said as he took a seat next to his. "I'm sure you know about the Reapers going around Citadel space and around several home worlds killing people." The drell gave a single nod. "I've been asked to gather up some people and build a team. I've heard about your medical skills and was hoping you'd help us out."

The drell took and deep breath and sighed. "I do not know how much help I can give you in the field. I am not at my best."

"Drunkenness will go away," Garrus said, hoping to get a smile from the saddened drell, but none came.

"I've lost somebody very dear to me. We've been together for what seems like years, but was in fact months." He looked up at Garrus, his blackened eyes seeming to stare straight into Garrus' soul, just like his old friend's eyes use to. Always so knowledgeable and wise. "I will not be going alone though," he continued. "I have a dear friend who is a wonderful fighter. I am sure it is she who will give you the help you so desire."

"We'd be willing to speak to your friend." Just then Garrus heard a grunt that sounded too much like somebody getting hit in the face. The two of them turned their heads towards the sound to see a human male getting hit in the stomach by a female turian. Garrus shook his head. Melanis seemed to be the same. He looked towards the door and saw Ian trying to cover a laugh, but failing to do so. The female turian didn't seem to like his laugh and began to walk over to him. Garrus heard Monteague curse and stand.

* * *

Ian watched Garrus walk over to the drell sitting and the table and decided to lean against a pillar near the doorway. He heard the bar door open and saw a human male walk inside, already smelling like alcohol and walk past him to the bar. It was then that he noticed that one of the smaller looking drell was not a drell, but in fact a female turian, who now had the displeasure of making an acquaintance with the drunkard. Contemplating whether or not to go help her out, Ian watched in amazement as the man tried, shamelessly, to kiss her; only to first get punched in the face with her elbow and then secondly to get a gut punch. The man first grunted then gave a cry as the face punch registered to his brain, then almost immediately afterwards he doubled over from the gut punch.

Ian tried to cover his laughter with a cough but failed. It was always humorous to watch a drunkard get beat up by competent woman no matter the species. It was then he saw that the female had turned her attention to him and cursed inwardly at his bad luck. "If you don't want to end up like your buddy, I'd shut up."

Ian snorted. "I'm not with him, but thanks for giving into the stereo-type that all humans are together." She snarled. "Look, I'm with the big turian over there who's talkin' to a friend of his. Just waiting is all."

"Waiting for what?" she demanded.

"Waiting for you," came a deep voice behind her. She turned and saw the drell Ian was talking about and calmed down slightly. "Monteague, I've been looking for you!" she yelled.

"Not too hard I hope," he said with sadness seeping into his voice. He looked at Garrus. "This is Garrus, he wants my help, but I told him you'd be a better match than I."

"What's the job?" she asked skeptically.

"Save the galaxy, stop the bad guys, and possibly survive for another day," Garrus dismissed. "You know, same old stuff we're taught in the military." He shrugged his shoulders in dismissal of how serious it was.

"Oh really?" she raised an eyebrow. "No damsel in distress to save?"

Garrus shrugged. "Never know, it may happen."

Ian blinked at this. It seemed unreal. Just a second ago the woman was trying to start a fight with him, now she was treating Garrus like she'd known him all her life.

"I guess I have nothing better to do, but what's the catch?" she asked

"We're going against the Reapers," he said with a very serious voice. "There's a very high chance you may die."

The woman crossed her arms acrossed her chest. "And here I thought it was going to be easy." She sighed. "I've got stuff to gather. Where do we meet you?"

"The southern port. Near the human sector."

She looked back at Ian, "Is he really a part of the team?" she inquired only to get a single nod from Garrus. She growled slightly. "Fine, but keep him away from me, I'm in no mood for boys trying to be men." With that she and Monteague walked out of the bar leaving both men behind.

"Is she always like that?" Ian asked in a deadpanned voice.

"Like what?" was his reply from the turian.

Ian's eyes widened. "Like…like she don't give a rat's ass about anything one minute, want to kill you the next, and then be all friendly."

Garrus chuckled as he walked out with Ian next to him. "That's just Mel." Ian sighed, which only caused Garrus to chuckle. "Don't think too much about it. If she wants to be your friend, she'll initiate contact. If not, stay away."

"Are all turian women like that?"

Garrus snorted. "Most are prissy and want you to court them and then settle down with them to make babies. Mel, is different. You've got to prove to her that you're worth the air you breathe. You've got to prove that you can do everything you're doing and can stay alive while doing it." He looked at Ian. "I think you two will make a great team."

Ian stopped in his tracks. "What!" he yelled at the turian as he continued to walk leaving the human in shock.


	12. Aria

**Chapter 12** : _Aria_

* * *

**Date** : _December 1, 2183_  
 **Location** : _Omega/Afterlife_

Ann looked around Afterlife and snorted as she noticed that some things just never change. Or at least she thought that until she saw a krogan stripper. She heard both Grim and Grunt chuckle and groaned inwardly at the sight. _I'm gonna have nightmares of that one for a long time_. She then walked up to the stairs to talk to Aria, only to be stopped by two batarians and a turian that she didn't recognize.

"Stop right there human," one of the batarians spoke. His voice eerily reminded her of a high pitched woman who was trying to sing opera.

She smirked at that thought. "Aria wants to see me."

"Says who?" the second said only to get pistol-whipped by the turian behind him.

"Aria," he said before nodding for Ann to follow. "Your weapons have to stay here."

She heard both of her teammates cock their shotguns behind her. "Not happening," was her reply.

"I wasn't asking human."

She then narrowed her eyes at him. "I wouldn't hand over my weapon to a clanless, pompous-assed, faceless turian or his boss's goons no matter who or what they were."

The turians own eyes narrowed at her and was about to retort back when Aria spoke. "Just let her pass Ty'ros." Ann smirked and continued her way up the steps and looked upon Aria the first time since coming to this reality. She looked the same, except this one had a very pregnant looking female laying next her on the couch. Aria was petting the young woman's exposed stomach with what could only be described as loving touch. Aria's eyes met hers and the two didn't speak until Aria nodded to the couch across from her. "So you're the female Shepard I've heard about from my….resources on the Citadel or at least until they vanished like the rest of the galaxy." She cocked her head. "Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for two salarians," Ann stated, she knew the routine: to get something from Aria, she was going to have to do something for Aria.

Aria picked up a glass filled with a purple liquid. "Names?"

"Mierin and Weaver." She smirked when she saw a scowl appear on the asari's perfect face.

"Yeah, I know of them." She smiled. "First I need you take out some trash for me, then I'll give you the location of your two salarians."

"No problem."

Aria raised an eyebrow. "I haven't even told you who I want taken out."

"Doesn't matter." Ann leaned forward. "If you want them dead or whatever you want, it's probably because they broke Omega's number one rule."

Aria began to chuckle. "I think I may like this Shepard." She began to pet the pregnant woman's head in a lovingly manner. "The other Shepard has a reputation of being too much of a paragon." She cocked her head. "You on the other hand have the renegade streak in you."

"When you've seen a world on fire and about to be harvested by machines you kind of just say 'Fuck it' to everything and do what you know needs to be done, no matter the consequences."

"A woman of action." Aria smirked. "I know a few of those." She then paused in her petting and stood up. "There's a group or turians known as the Talons on Omega and I've put up with their shit for the last several months. They do a lot of dealings with slavery and transferring red sand around the galaxy." Ann's eyes' narrowed on this causing Aria to smirk. "However they haven't paid tribute to me in months and there are rumors they're trying to bring about a takeover of Omega. I want you to make sure that not a single one of them is left alive. Kill all of them."

"And when I return?"

"I'll have both salarians right here for you." Ann thought about that deal for about a second before she stood up and walked down the stairs to where Grim and Grunt were waiting for her.

"Well?" Grim asked as they headed out of Afterlife.

"Ever hear about a group called the Talons?" she asked the older krogan.

"Yeah, they were killed by the Blood Pack when they tried to takeover Omega. Their leader escaped though. Aria was pissed, which meant Patriarch was pissed. Heads rolled for that mistake. It was the last mistake that the Blood Pack made on Omega." He paused and the chuckled. "That is until Archangel came."

Ann chuckled. "Yeah everybody made the mistake in thinking he'd go away." She smiled.

"Why are we talking about them?" Grunt asked feeling slightly ignored by his commander since Grim came aboard the Normandy.

"Because we're taking them out tonight in order to get our two salarians."

"About time we killed something." Grunt snortted. "I was beginning to get itchy."

"You're always itchy Grunt." she laughed as they headed down towards the weapons kiosk.

* * *

Aria stood up after Shepard had left and turned towards Ty'ros and spoke. "Find those salarians and send several spies to watch Shepard. Make sure she does as I have said."

"Yes Aria." He nodded and quickly left Afterlife to do his bosses business.


	13. Omega Battle

**Chapter 13** : _Omega Battle_

* * *

**Date** : _December 1, 2183_

**Location** : _Omega_

Sitting in his apartment, Derius Kyos is overlooking battle plans for the takeover of Omega. His second in command, a biotic turian female named Nyreen was standing by the wall of windows that adorned his little apartment. The red clan marking of her was the only thing that shined brightly on her face. Derius knew better than to piss her off. Many Talons believed him to be in control of the turian formed gang. However that was far from the truth. Nyreen was the true mastermind of everything they did.

"Aria is going to be pissed about us not paying her tribute anymore," he said stating the obvious.

"Let her," was her only reply as she continued to look out at Omega. "It's time we left this cesspool and went on to better things."

"Hmm…" Derius looked off towards her. "That's why you're selling these plans to the highest bidder?" he asked in realization of her plans.

"Yes." She turned towards him. "Though technically you're selling them, since most believe you're in charge."

"I'm still wondering why you're letting people believe that," He muttered more to himself.

"Insurance," She replied. "I'm leaving for the night. Try to get a good price." She then turned away from the disgraced former Talon leader.

Derius ran a taloned hand over his ruined face. Several months ago, Nyreen had shown up on Omega. He'd found her military records and was quite impressed with them. He'd had some men go and "invite" her to his apartment for some "talks". He growled slightly at the foolishness that had been. He'd been sitting on his couch with his arms spread out across the back of it when she'd arrived. As soon as his men had locked the door from within her attitude had changed from one of an innocent young female to a killer. She'd whipped out a dagger and killed both of his guards and took him out using her biotics. When he'd come to, she gave him a choice. To live and still be the figurehead of the Talons; but live with the knowledge that he was nothing more than her puppet or to die right there and then. Like a coward, he accepted her first offer rather than the later. Since then he did things her way and the Talons thought she was his newest girl toy.

Giving a heavy sigh, he stood and walked over to the terminal and began looking through his private messages. Messages she monitored through her omni-tool. He found two good offers. One from the Blood Pack Leader and the other was from a salarian gang who were nothing important. But by the spirits they are offering a lot of credits for Nyreen's plans. He thought and Nyreen wanted the best offer.

After contacting the salarians and after the salarian group had sent the money into Nyreen's account, he handed them the plans. He then went to settle down and take care of the other Talon business when suddenly the door to his apartment was blown open and the next thing he knew he had an angry looking human flanked by a krogan in his apartment and a heavily modded shotgun in his face.

* * *

Meanwhile in the Slums….

Garrus and Ian flanked by both Monteague and Melanis. The drell walked a bit slower than anybody else which caused Ian to look him over once and notice that Monteagues leg was bothering him. "I think Monteague is hurt Garrus," he stated.

Garrus turned his head slightly, letting his visor take a reading from Monteague and gave a bit of an annoyed growl. "Take him to the Normandy. Melanis and I will find the others."

Ian nodded and slowed down to Monteague's pace. "You and I'll head off to the Normandy, okay?"

The drell nodded. "That may be wise," was his reply as the two walked off towards the port where the Normandy was more than likely parked.

Garrus watched Monteague and Ian walk off towards the port and then turned towards Melanis. She still had that I'm-pissed-off-at-something look written across her face. "Our targets should be ahead of us." He stated a matter-of-factly.

She snorted at him, a very human thing, and followed. "What are we doing? Shooting them or-"

"Not those types of targets," he said. "Erash and Laet are two of the best fighters and we want them on our team."

"You mean your team that's going to kill the Reapers," she said as she put her pistol back.

"Yes," he stated as he rounded the corner, only to come face to face with a bunch of Vorcha trying to kill their next team members. Just as they were about to kill off some and help, a human male came out of nowhere shooting the vorcha at close range and going berserk on them. After the fight was over the human looked at them and Garrus had to chuckle. Standing there was none other than Butler, the craziest human; next to Ann, that he'd ever known. However this Butler didn't know him.

"Who the heck are you?" the human asked. The two turians that had been fighting the vorcha looked over at them and approached Garrus and Melanis.

"You Butler?" Garrus asked knowing he was.

"And if I am?" the bulky human answered while spitting out a glob of blood mixed with spit from his mouth.

"My name is Garrus Vakarian. I work for Spectre Shepard, and we're putting together a team to take out the Reapers. Your name is on our list." Garrus explained causing Butler to chuckled.

"Was wonderin' when somebody would be stupid enough to take 'em on." He smiled. "Hell, they 'er prob'ly on Earth and fightin' and my wife said somethin' about thems takin' out ole London herself."

"Why you here and not there?" Melanis asked.

"Because I listen to my wife. She say stay, I'm a stayin'." He sighed sadly. " 'sides nobody is takin' shuttles to Earth."

"We are," Garrus explained. "And to Palaven to pick up the Primarch for the War Summit."

Erash suddenly lifted a talon. "You mind if I tag along? Been wanting to shoot something other than these vorcha all day long."

"Actually, you and Laet were on the list too." Garrus smirked as the two men lifted their browplates in surprise. "Now I just have to find Grundan, he's a batarian."

"A crazy shit if I ever knew one too," Laet said with a wide grin. "He's nearby. I'll message him. Where you want to meet him?

Garrus chuckled. He forgotten how much he loved his people, but of course these weren't _his_ people…yet.

* * *

**Location** : _Derius Apartment Complex_

Nyreen had only been gone for a few minutes when she heard the explosion near Derius's apartments where the Talons were staying. By the time she arrived it was all over and everybody was dead. She suddenly spotted three of Aria's men and growled lowly. Activating her stealth generator she was about to sneak up behind the two batarians and their turian boss when she heard them speak.

"Looks like Shepard took care of them all," the turian said into his omni-tool.

"All are dead?" came Aria's voice.

"Yes ma'am," came the batarians voice. "We checked. Even Derius is dead. It seems he was the hardest to fight. Took them a full twenty minutes to go throught the entire apartment complex."

"Derius would've been a fun trophy, too bad," she said.

"You asked her to kill-" the second batarian began.

"I know," she said with annoyance. "Go through the computers, see what they were planning and check and see if everybody is accounted for."

"Yes ma'am," the turian replied into his omni-tool.

Nyreen, upon hearing this, ran off towards the top of the apartment complex and found her computer still active. Downloading all her information and then erasing everything she smiled as she looked through the apartment. She found Derius's body and smirked. She'd been planning to kill him for awhile, but this Shepard person had done it for her. She bent down towards Derius's body and took his omni-tool from him just to ensure that nothing would lead to her. Suddenly her omni-tool pinged and she smirked once more as Derius's earlier transaction came through. Twenty million credits was a fine new start.


	14. Old Friends

**Chapter 14** : _Old Friends_

* * *

**Date** : _December 2, 2183_ _  
_ **Location** : _Omega_

Ann walked up towards Aria's couch and saw two very nervous looking salarians. One had a scar bisecting his left eye, making him look a bit tuffer than most salarians. The second one had a more golden coloring to his skin and wore metal gauntlets. "Mierin and Weaver?" she asked, bot salarians gave a curt nod, but didn't speak; which for a salarian was unusual.

"You did as I asked." Aria said dismissively. " So I found want you wanted, just like I said I would."

Ann nodded. "Thanks and it wasn't a problem in taking down the Talons." She then tapped her omni-tool. "I found some intel on one of the computers in the Talon Complex and I think it'll buy me something else from you."

Aria's eyes narrowed towards the human commander. "What kind of intel?" she asked as she leaned forward ever so slightly. Ann tapped the holographic display and sent Aria the information. Aria looked at her omni-tool and growled slightly at what she was reading. She then shook herself of her anger. "Thank-you for this Shepard. These groups will learn very hard what it means to fuck with Aria." She then lifted her chin toward the Commander. "What do you want?"

"Mostly supplies." Ann said. "Refugees need a place to go that's be safe and I'm sure you know where that is."

Aria leaned back. "Nobody can know it comes from me though. I can't let the merc groups think I'm going soft for a bunch of refugees."

"Of course." Ann nodded hearing a chirp from her omni-tool. Upon opening it she saw three system names that could be used by refugees. Nodding Ann turned to leave. Just as she stepped down the last of the stairs away from Aria's "throne" one of her turian guards spoke. "If you're in the helping mood, you may want to go down the lower level of Afterlife and speak to an old krogan named Patriarch." The turian shifted from foot to foot. "He may not have that much influence on Omega these days, but he can tell you what krogan clans may be interested in talking to you about fighting these reaper things that have been causing us headaches as of late."

Ann nodded. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it...ever." he said before turning away from her and back towards the endless see of faces."

Grunt looked up at his battlemaster as she headed towards him and the old timer Grim. "Shepard." He said acknowledging her.

"Grunt." She said back as he a Grim fell in line behind her and began to travel through the bowels of Afterlife. As they came to the lower level and more smelly area of Afterlife, Grunt took notice of several things. Like the lack of krogan in the area and that there were at least ten vorcha in the lower level. Something smelt off about them, but of course vorcha always smelt funny to him. They entered a VIP area where another old krogan was telling some tales of the old days, before the genophage. Grunt smirked as the old one came to the part of tearing the flesh from his enemies.

Ann cleared her throat, which was when the old krogan paused in his tale. "What do you want human?" he asked

"You Patriarch?" she asked, though she knew he was.

"Who wants to know?" came his reply.

"Commander Shepard." She stated.

The old krogan looked her up and down and then began chuckling. "Nice try." He said. "Shepard is male." He turned his back to her.

"I'm the other Shepard." She said. "I was told you may have some connections that I can use,"

"Who said that is drunk." He said sadly. "I have no connections. When Aria stripped me of my clan name she stripped me of my connections."

"Bullshit." Ann said. "Once a krogan, always a krogan. Krogan have krant. I'm sure you have a few of those left."

"No krant would be caught dead with me." He stated.

"Maybe it's time you look for them because soon, not even Omega can stay out of this war." She looked at him. "You are still a strong krogan. I'd be your krant."

That made the old krogan's back straighten. "You'd be my krant?" he asked in disbelief.

"You bet your old ass I would." She smirked when he laughed.

"You're alright Shepard." He paused. "Okay. I do know some Clans on Tuchanka that'll help you."

"Great." She smiled. "Give me the Clan names-"

"You misunderstand." He paused. "They'd want to authenticate that it's me sending you."

"Okay." She said with a nod.

"Good. Let me take care of some _things_ and I'll meet you at your ship." With that the old krogan headed off.

"Did you just gain another krogan on this voyage Shepard?" Grunts asked in disbelief.

"Yep." She then looked behind Grunt and Grim and spotted the two salarians. "Okay, let's head back to the Normandy."

"Wonder if your turian mate got his team." Grim grunted as they made their way through Afterlife and off towards the Normandy.

"Knowing him," Grunt said, "yes."

* * *

Nyreen stood off to the shadows as she watched this _Shepard_ woman talk to Aria, gain to salarians to her group and walk off towards the underbelly of Afterlife. Deciding to wait outside for her, Nyreen stood leaning against the side of the building which was Afterlife and as she waiting she spotted a turian she thought she'd never see again. The blue and white clan facepaint was easy to find in the crowd. Behind him were two male turians, each with different facepaint; though it looked like they were following him. Next to him on either side was a male human and a female turian trailing behind the one bulky human. On the right of the female was a drell. She smirked and pushed off from the building and headed off towards the group. As the group came upon the airlock to a ship she spoke.

"Garrus Vakarian." She said his name with an affectionate trill to her double vocalcords, causing said male to turn his head towards her. "I always knew you were a groupie, but I'd never have pegged you as the one to have the groupies."

His face showed shock at seeing her. She smirked and sashayed towards him. "Nyreen Krandos." He said offering her his arm for a wrist clasp and a friendly hug which she accepted. "What are you doing on Omega?"

"I could ask the same thing." She said eyeing each of his associates.

"Recruiting." He said simply.

She cocked her head. "Because of what happened to the citadel?"

He nodded. "The reapers are a force to reckon with." He paused. "Do you still fight dirty?"

She smirked. "Is there any other way?"

That caused everybody, minus the drell, to laugh. No, no there isn't." he looked over his shoulder. "Come with us. It'll get you off Omega and back to doing what we always did in the military."

"Prank the CO and cause problems for the nightcrew?" she teased.

"That was one time." He defended.

"Uh-huh." She said disbelieving. She looked over her shoulder towards Afterlife. "Okay." She walked past him. "But you still owe me a couple drinks."

Garrus chuckled. "Not a problem."


	15. Escape

**Chapter 15** : _Escape_

* * *

**Date** : _December 1, 2183_

**Location** : _Naru Ta System_ / _Attican Traverse_

John was looking at the galaxy map when he heard somebody clear their throat behind him. Taking a deep breath he put on a smile and turned to see Tali standing there, twiddling her fingers. "Tali," he acknowledged her. "How can I help you?"

"Actually," she began, "I think I can help you." John leaned his back against the bar that looked over the galaxy map. She had his full attention. "I just got done talking to my father, thanks for letting me use the QEC by the way, and he says that there hasn't been a single Reaper sighting where my people are located." She brought up the system on the galaxy map to show him what the system looked like. It bordered old quarian boundaries and the turian boundary. It was considered a dead system because there weren't any planets, so to speak of, and there were two suns in the system. "I've been talking to the Admiralty Board, who talked to the rest of our citizens and I've gotten permission from them to allow out of placed people, survivors, civilian ships and hospital ships to be relocated there." She paused. "I just need you to help me convince everybody else that its safe there for them to go, as long as they don't mind sharing the system with us quarians."

John nodded. "Sounds good Tali." He walked into the QEC with Tali beside him. "Joker, get me Admiral Hackett, Counselor Trevos, Counselor Valern, and the salarian Counselor on the line asap."

"Valern and the Daltrass are going to be impossible to get a hold of," Joker said as he looked over at his new co-pilot Angie who was smiling at him.

"Why?"

"They're dead," was his reply.

John sighed. "Okay, then get me the next best thing to them."

"Gotcha."

John and Tali watched as first Admiral Hackett and Trevos appeared in the room on the holo's, followed by a turian John recognized as the turian ambassador Spartacus and a salarian he'd never seen before. "Counselor, ambassador, Admiral, and…"

"Daltrass Viri'a," the salarian answered.

"Good to meet you Daltrass." He turned to Tali. "This is Tali'Zorah nar Raya. She has, for the last several hours been talking to her own government-"that got a snort from the turian. "They have agreed to allow our misplaced peoples, civilian ships, hospital ships, and survivors into their territory and they will be aided in any way they need to be.

Everybody was silent on this, but it was Hackett that spoke first. "Miss Zorah, the Systems Alliance is very happy to hear this. With so many people misplaced, missing, or even dead; it's nice to know somebody is willing to overlook past mistakes and allow something like this to occur."

"It took a lot of convincing on my part," she said, "But they'll allow it and-"

"What if the geth and Reapers come there, there will be no place for us to flee," the Daltrass said hastily.

"I'd hate to say this, but I agree with Viri'a," Trevos stated.

"Would you rather take a chance staying on Thessia or one of its colonies? Which I hear are being bombarded by Reaper armies….husked asari and those mutant krogan/turian things," Spartacus said. He turned to Tali. "I'll send word to Primarch Fadorian and you can bet you'll be receiving his reply within the hour." He paused. "And I apologize for being rude at the beginning of this conversation."

"It's okay," Tali said shaking her head. "I'm use to it by now."

"That's going to change," He promised. "We dextro species should stand together and I am sorry for-" the holo disappeared, as did the others as the comm. relay was shut down.

"Joker! What happened?" John yelled into an intercom by the door to the QEC.

"I don't know sir, but a big ass ship just came into the system and it ain't one of ours!" came Jokers panicked voice over the ships intercom.

"What the heck is it?" he asked as he came into the CIC and the galaxy image vanished only to be replaced by an image of a ship that looked partially organic.

"That's not a Reaper sir," Presley stated as he began taking in data about the ship as they scanned it from afar.

John's eyes widened as he remembered what Ann and Serena had told him awhile back. "No, it's the Collectors." He ran down the halls towards the armory. "Evasive maneuvers Jeff!" he yelled into the intercom in the elevator. While Tali ran down to the engineering, John quickly got his armor on, looking over at Aberdeen, Jack and Jacob; he saw they were doing the same thing as him. "Everybody get your armor on and ready yourselves in case of a need of evac. All ground crew prepare yourselves to repel boarders!" came John's voice over the intercom. "Joker, send a message through a tight beam communications to Ann that the Collectors have joined into this fight."

"Got it!" Angie yelled to Joker, who nodded as his fingers raced across the holo console, trying to direct the ship away from danger. The partical beam from the Collector ship almost hit them, only to miss as Joker went left instead of right towards the relay. Using the gravity of a nearby gas giant he was able to whiplash them across the system and hit the second relay just as another blast from the Collector ship hit the relay, making it explode and the system vanished from existence.


	16. Leviathan

**Chapter 16** : _Leviathan_

* * *

 **Date:** _December 2, 2183  
_ **Location** : _Unknown System_

"So let me guess," Serena began as she looked at Joker who had a smirk on his face as he waited for a transmission from Ann who was on the unknown planet below. "Ann's going to find a big ass weapon here that the Leviathans made millions of years ago?"

Joker chuckled. "I plead the fifth," He replied, causing his girlfriend to raise an eyebrow. Sighing. he turned towards her. "Back home, we came to this system looking just for that: a weapon. However, when we arrived we were met by hundreds of ships in this system, all of which were dead. Some dated thousands of years back. From early Asari exploration ships to even a few Prothean ships and ships that I had no idea who or where they'd come from." He paused as he took off his cap and scratched his head. "When we got close to the planet Shepard took Javik and Liara down. Cortez was piloting down when suddenly they lost power to the shuttle. They landed on what could only be described as a ship graveyard on the - well, not ground - but watery surface. They found a lot of old Alliance data pads, but no bodies. Turns out that planet wasn't as dead as we thought and the weapon was actually a species called the Leviathan, not a weapon they'd left behind." He leaned back in his chair. "They took a lot of time to stop people from finding them."

"Why?" she asked as she looked back at the console on the co-pilot's station.

"Because they're the fucking idiots that built those damn things!" he yelled, startling her at his outburst. He gave her an apologetic look, Serena just shook her head. "The Reapers had tried to harvest their own masters. They'd almost succeeded too! They had thought that the Leviathans were dead. We were able to get their help in the war. They became the distraction we needed to get through the relay that the Reapers had come from. Once through, we found how the Reapers had existed for millions of years. After each cycle they'd go back to their _home system_ and just shut down and wait for the next cycle. It was like a fucking city! They had tiny ships that fixed them while they slept. They had ships that created new ships using the organic materials they had harvested and they had machines that took apart older Reapers and re-purposed them. It was.." he shook his head. "Disturbing is one word to describe it."

"But Ann destroyed all of that," Serena said with a smile.

"Yeah, but so many were killed in our reality before we even found a way to stop them."

Suddenly the comms came alive. "Joker, you there?"

"Ah Commander, always nice to hear your voice." He answered as he turned back to his console and looked at her through Liara's helmet cam.

"I'm not getting any answers this time around," she said shaking her head.

"Did you take the titan down?" he asked, she made a face at Liara's cam.

"I hate those things." She shook her head. "The indoctrination spheres aren't even up."

"Something had to take out those ships that you're standing on," he said, causing the Commander to give him a look through the cam.

"I'm going down," she said as she turned away from the cam.

Serena yawned and stretched, causing Joker to turn away from the screen and look over at her. He looked down at her semi-flat stomach and couldn't wait until she began showing a bit more. Right now there was barely a dent to her belly. His eyes then traveled back up to her face and saw that she saw starring at him. "What?" he asked, knowing full well he'd just been caught checking her out.

Serena shook her head at him and stood up to leave. "Nothing," she said as she turned and began to walk up towards the CIC. He whistled as he watched her ass sway left to right. She turned her head towards him. "Pervert."

Chuckling, he turned back to his console and yelled back to her. "Only yours!" he yelled as the doors to the bridge closed behind her.

* * *

 **Location** : _Kepler Verge_

John looked at the galaxy map and growled slightly in frustration. Yesterday had been a close call. They hadn't expected the Reapers in that system, and when one had appeared, they had to run away with their tail between their legs. He did have to admit, they were lucky they'd gotten out of there. It had been like the Reaper had been hunting for them. It was…strange. "Joker," he yelled out into the comm on the console he was leaning over.

"Yeah?" came a tired voice that was definitely his pilot's voice.

"Send the information package I've readied for Ann on what happened yesterday," he said as he rubbed his face. "Afterwards, let Dan takeover and get some sleep. I need my best pilot ready in case I need him."

"Aye Commander," came the reply.

John then turned and walked down to the mess hall where he found Liara and Tali in a heated discussion about something that was more than likely over his head. "Ladies," he greeted them.

Liara's face suddenly became a nice shade of purple, while Tali giggled. "Commander," was their response.

Now that had his attention. "So what are you two ladies talking about?" he asked while pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"Nothing." Tali giggled as she stood up to leave. "It was nice to talk to you Liara," she said as she walked towards the elevator to engineering.

"I should go," Liara said, still blushing at the Commander, who chuckled at her retreating form.

"Females," came a gruff voice in the corner of the room. John looked over towards Wrex.

"Wrex, I forgot you were still on board," John said sitting down where the girls had once occupied.

"Humph…" was the Krogan battlemaster's reply. "Haven't been much anywhere else. Was hoping you'd do me a favor."

"Anything for you Wrex." John watched the battlemaster lumber over towards him.

Upon sitting down, Wrex looked over the weary looking human male. "I need to go to Tuchanka and get some of Urdnot allies to join in this fight."

"How?" John asked as he took a sip of his coffee. Turning John saw a tired Joker shuffle towards the crew rooms.

Wrex chuckled as he too watched Joker shuffle off towards the crew rooms. "I know how to get Krogan to listen."

"And if they won't?" John asked cocking his head at the battlemaster.

Wrex leaned in towards John's face. "Then we bash a few skulls in until they do."

John smirked at his friend. "Okay." He scratched his stubble infested face. "Then you're going to need your Krantt for that."

Wrex snorted. "Where'd you hear that word?" he eyed the human commander suspiciously.

"One of Ann's men….I think Grunt, said it," he said, actually trying to remember _who_ did say that word and explain it to him.

"Humph," Wrex grunted. "Who you choosing to come?"

"Aberdeen, Jack, myself, Tali maybe?" he said tiredly as he suddenly yawned.

"Tali's got a quad," He snorted. "She's tougher than she looks." He paused. "Most Krogan see Quarians as weak because of their suits; but the truth is they're some of the toughest little creatures I know." He smirked. "Years before they were thrown off their world by the Geth, there actually were Quarian spectres. I remember this one time I had a run in with one. Damn thing bit my hand when I went to rip its head off. Mind you, I was younger and stupider then. Quarians have these fangs that extend when they bite. Hurts like hell and because of the venom in their saliva it takes a tad bit longer for a victim to get better from one of those bites. Took me three weeks to get the use of the hand again." Wrex looked over at John whose head had slumped down onto the table. Chuckling the old Krogan warlord and battlemaster headed back down into cargo bay to get some rest himself.

* * *

Ann stepped out of her bathroom and looked out towards her bed and smirked at the sleeping form of her husband. Sighing sleepily she walked over to her terminal and began reading her messages. Two were from John's aunt asking how she was and if she'd heard from John and so forth. The next one was a message from Hackett who was asking her to check out Grissom Academy because it'd gone dark. The last one was from John.

_Ann,_

_Thought I'd tell you to be careful. Yesterday the Naru Ta System was destroyed by the Reapers. We were in it and it was like they were hunting us. It was intentionally trying to get us and destroy our ship…again. Not sure if they are onto us or not, but I thought it would be best to contact you and tell you what happened. Be careful._

_JS_

Sighing Ann replied back to John.

_John,_

_Thank-you for the warning. We'll be careful. Got a new ally in this fight. Will explain when we meet in Arcturus._

_Ann_

Standing up from her terminal, she headed towards bed and laid down next her husband. She laid there for a good ten minutes when she felt a strong arm pull her towards a hard plated chest. She then felt his lip plates against her ear. "Sleep love."

Turning towards him she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "What if we don't win this time?"

"We will." He pulled away and lifted her chin up so their eyes matched up. "There's no Vakarian without Shepard."

She sighed. "There's no Shepard without Vakarian," She responded back as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay originally this was also on fanfiction.net and chapters 1-16 were originally published May 29, 2012 to Febuary 25, 2014
> 
> I just finished chapter 17; which'll be posted first on ff.net then posted on here very soon. My beta: xoxoangii from ff.net is currently looking it over to ensure it has no spelling mistakes and stuff.
> 
> However; I'd love to hear what you think of my story so far. ^_^


	17. The Unexpected

**Chapter 17:** _The Unexpected_

* * *

**Date** : _2153_

**Location** : _Shanxi_

_"Get down!" a man yelled as he pulled the private to safety. "What the fuck do you think you were doing?" he asked the man...more like boy. The army seemed to take anybody with a pulse nowadays. "Those damn things would rather eat ya alive, than anything else. What's your damn name boy?"_

_"Grizzle Sir!" he shouted. "I thought Shanxi was safe sir?" he asked._

_"It was until we discovered aliens!" the man yelled back as he peered over the barrier to see the damn alien glowing. "What the-" he didn't finish as the alien lifted a concrete slab above the duo and let it fall. Their bodies crushed from the shear weight, red blood oozed out from under the slab and stain the ground as it pooled near the beings feet. Its mandibles click._

_Bringing its taloned hand up to his mandibles he spoke into a communicator. "Area secure, the human oppositions have been squashed in this sector."_

* * *

**Date** : _December 6, 2183_

**Location** : _Shanxi_

General Tarren Vetrosi had been a biotic soldier during the First Contact War with the human occupation of Shanxi. Today he commanded his own ship with sixteen other ships at his command that now were trying to keep Shanxi from falling under the Reapers might. Human civilian and war ships were filling up with survivors and trying to escape through the only relay out of the system that wasn't being protected by the damn beasts and their terrible canons. "What's the situation?" he asked its XO Commander. X'alous looked at the general with fear in his eyes.

"We're losing," he said. His harmonics were giving off that he was very fearful of what would happen to them. Suddenly a Reaper fired at the Tartanious, the flagship they were on. "Shields down to twenty percent General!" X'anlous shouted, his fear now doubled. The ships rattled as suddenly two breeches occurred at the same time. "Enemy boarding parties sir!"

"Where?" he demanded as he grabbed his shotgun from his back. The others soldiers following their leaders example and pulled out their own weapons. "Port-side observation deck and Cargo bay Area A and B," came a short crisp reply from the second lieutenant who was pulling out his side arm pistols and readying them for a firefight.

"Commander X'alous, give the order to abandon ship. The rest of you follow me." He turned to the door that would take them down the stairway to the enemy's location. "We'll give our comrades time to flee to the life pods. Any who wish to leave with them are welcome to do so. You will not be punished."

"Sir," his second began. "We're with you."

That day, General Tarren Vetrosi and 20 brave biotic soldiers gave their lives to save their once long ago enemy, the humans, a chance to escape from Shanxi. What they couldn't have known was the Reapers would not be killing them, but using them one day very soon, for their own purposes.

* * *

**Date** : _December 29, 2183_

**Location** : _Arcturus Station_

Steven Hackett looked at the files of data that were streaming through the battle net in the central hub on Arcturus Station. Millions of people were MIA. John and Ann Shepard with Admiral Hannah Shepard had sent a file stating that they almost had what they needed for their assault of the Citadel. John, he knew, would be able to do it. However, he was still unsure if Ann could be trusted. There had been rumors saying that she was an agent of the Shadow Broker, or even worse, Cerberus. John had ensured him that she was neither. So until she proved the Commander wrong, Steven Hackett had no choice but to trust his best soldier's instincts.

The door opened to the battle net CIC hub. Hackett looked up to see his old friend, David Anderson standing there. He crossed the room and shook Anderson's hand. "Thought we lost you on Earth," he said.

Anderson chuckled. "Almost did." He sighed as he too began looking through the piling data that was streaming through every computer screen in the room. "Was ordered by Admiral Malchavich to return to Arcturus with as many survivors as I could and stay until otherwise told so." He pushed himself away from the consoles. "He hasn't been heard from in ten days." Turning to his friend and superior he looked at him. "What's the sit-rep."

Hackett picked up a data pad. "Shanxi we lost on the seventh, after General Vetrosi gave his and twenty-odd men's lives for our people. All sixteen of his ships were destroyed, but it gave all our ships and civilians both in the system and on planet time to get out of there. Mindior is the same. Gone. Aetious Prime, the first human/turian colony world?" he got a nod from Anderson. "Gone. Titan and it's sister planet in the same system, Calpris," he sighed. "They were bombarded from space and reduced to slag."

"No harvest?" Anderson asked. "No. They were only outpost worlds. Less than 20,000 each." He sat the data pad down and picked up another. "The asari lost Thessia, Illium, Tandrosi, and a few others." He picked up another pad. "The salarians lost fifteen worlds so far, plus one called Zaradosa, which turned out to be a huge STG base planet that housed sixty different harmful based animals and unknown beings."

"Unknown beings?" Anderson asked as he raised an eyebrow.

"The daltrass didn't want to admit to that one, but-" he shook his head and sat down and looked at the other data pads. "That's not counting the Turians, Elcor, Volus, and Hannar losses."

"This is just the beginning," David said as he too sat down next to his long time friend. "What about the crucible?"

Hackett pressed a few buttons on the consoles of the battle net and brought up the images of the crucible. A percentage bar at the bottom read 30% in bright bold red lettering. "We're behind schedule on the project. We have both human, turian, and asari scientists working on this." He shut down the screen and data streams returned in its place. "I'm told that if things don't improve soon, it won't be finished until next year in mid-November."

"Shit." Anderson shook his head in disgust. "There may not be a galaxy left by then."

"However, there is good news," Hackett said with a smile. "John and Ann Shepard both told me that the Geth and Quarians have called a cease fire and have agreed to put aside their war and help out with the Reapers. The Quarians landed on Rannoch a week ago and the civilians were allowed to stay while the soldiers make their way back here to help. 25,800 ships are staying in orbit around Rannoch while the rest are being sent to other areas that need help. I've also been told that 16,000 Quarians arrived on Menae to assist the Turans, and another 120,000 are headed this way to be put into teams with other species to help out in any way shape or form. They are also sending all of their scientists to help with the Crucible." He paused and looked down at his omni-tool as it just pinged. "The Geth have come to a consensus. They are sending 20% of their troops to protect the Crucible, another 20% to assist in its construction, 10% to Palaven, and another 12% to various regions of the galaxy to assist civilian evacuations."

"And the rest?" Anderson asked looking eagerly at Steven, who smiled.

"Half are staying to protect Rannoch and the other half are headed to Earth." Hackett leaned back and for the first time in a long time felt that they may have a fighting chance.

"Now if the Shepards can work their magic on the Krogan," David said as he stood up to leave. Hackett followed, and as the two men entered the elevator to go down to the main halls of the station, both were hoping and silently praying that help wouldn't be too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I am procrastinating on it. I know! *sigh* Okay, so I may or may not even know how this story ends, but it will end in the next few chapters. I'm thinking that I'll write 7 or 8 more chapters and this story will be done with. Then I'll take a few months off and return to write the final and last part to this trilogy.
> 
> Xoxoangii(my Beta): I can't believe this story could potentially be almost over. But I think I can handle 7 or 8 more chapters. :)
> 
> Me: So with that said…Review and I'll see about getting out chapter 18 this month as well. ^_^


	18. Chapter 17: The Unexpected

**Chapter 17:** _The Unexpected_

* * *

 **Date** : _2153_

 **Location** : _Shanxi_

_"Get down!" a man yelled as he pulled the private to safety. "What the fuck do you think you were doing?" he asked the man...more like boy. The army seemed to take anybody with a pulse nowadays. "Those damn things would rather eat ya alive, than anything else. What's your damn name boy?"_

_"Grizzle Sir!" he shouted. "I thought Shanxi was safe sir?" he asked._

_"It was until we discovered aliens!" the man yelled back as he peered over the barrier to see the damn alien glowing. "What the-" he didn't finish as the alien lifted a concrete slab above the duo and let it fall. Their bodies crushed from the shear weight, red blood oozed out from under the slab and stain the ground as it pooled near the beings feet. Its mandibles click._

_Bringing its taloned hand up to his mandibles he spoke into a communicator. "Area secure, the human oppositions have been squashed in this sector."_

* * *

**Date** : _December 6, 2183_

 **Location** : _Shanxi_

General Tarren Vetrosi had been a biotic soldier during the First Contact War with the human occupation of Shanxi. Today he commanded his own ship with sixteen other ships at his command that now were trying to keep Shanxi from falling under the Reapers might. Human civilian and war ships were filling up with survivors and trying to escape through the only relay out of the system that wasn't being protected by the damn beasts and their terrible canons. "What's the situation?" he asked its XO Commander. X'alous looked at the general with fear in his eyes.

"We're losing," he said. His harmonics were giving off that he was very fearful of what would happen to them. Suddenly a Reaper fired at the Tartanious, the flagship they were on. "Shields down to twenty percent General!" X'anlous shouted, his fear now doubled. The ships rattled as suddenly two breeches occurred at the same time. "Enemy boarding parties sir!"

"Where?" he demanded as he grabbed his shotgun from his back. The others soldiers following their leaders example and pulled out their own weapons. "Port-side observation deck and Cargo bay Area A and B," came a short crisp reply from the second lieutenant who was pulling out his side arm pistols and readying them for a firefight.

"Commander X'alous, give the order to abandon ship. The rest of you follow me." He turned to the door that would take them down the stairway to the enemy's location. "We'll give our comrades time to flee to the life pods. Any who wish to leave with them are welcome to do so. You will not be punished."

"Sir," his second began. "We're with you."

That day, General Tarren Vetrosi and 20 brave biotic soldiers gave their lives to save their once long ago enemy, the humans, a chance to escape from Shanxi. What they couldn't have known was the Reapers would not be killing them, but using them one day very soon, for their own purposes.

* * *

 **Date** : _December 29, 2183_

 **Location** : _Arcturus Station_

Steven Hackett looked at the files of data that were streaming through the battle net in the central hub on Arcturus Station. Millions of people were MIA. John and Ann Shepard with Admiral Hannah Shepard had sent a file stating that they almost had what they needed for their assault of the Citadel. John, he knew, would be able to do it. However, he was still unsure if Ann could be trusted. There had been rumors saying that she was an agent of the Shadow Broker, or even worse, Cerberus. John had ensured him that she was neither. So until she proved the Commander wrong, Steven Hackett had no choice but to trust his best soldier's instincts.

The door opened to the battle net CIC hub. Hackett looked up to see his old friend, David Anderson standing there. He crossed the room and shook Anderson's hand. "Thought we lost you on Earth," he said.

Anderson chuckled. "Almost did." He sighed as he too began looking through the piling data that was streaming through every computer screen in the room. "Was ordered by Admiral Malchavich to return to Arcturus with as many survivors as I could and stay until otherwise told so." He pushed himself away from the consoles. "He hasn't been heard from in ten days." Turning to his friend and superior he looked at him. "What's the sit-rep."

Hackett picked up a data pad. "Shanxi we lost on the seventh, after General Vetrosi gave his and twenty-odd men's lives for our people. All sixteen of his ships were destroyed, but it gave all our ships and civilians both in the system and on planet time to get out of there. Mindior is the same. Gone. Aetious Prime, the first human/turian colony world?" he got a nod from Anderson. "Gone. Titan and it's sister planet in the same system, Calpris," he sighed. "They were bombarded from space and reduced to slag."

"No harvest?" Anderson asked. "No. They were only outpost worlds. Less than 20,000 each." He sat the data pad down and picked up another. "The asari lost Thessia, Illium, Tandrosi, and a few others." He picked up another pad. "The salarians lost fifteen worlds so far, plus one called Zaradosa, which turned out to be a huge STG base planet that housed sixty different harmful based animals and unknown beings."

"Unknown beings?" Anderson asked as he raised an eyebrow.

"The daltrass didn't want to admit to that one, but-" he shook his head and sat down and looked at the other data pads. "That's not counting the Turians, Elcor, Volus, and Hannar losses."

"This is just the beginning," David said as he too sat down next to his long time friend. "What about the crucible?"

Hackett pressed a few buttons on the consoles of the battle net and brought up the images of the crucible. A percentage bar at the bottom read 30% in bright bold red lettering. "We're behind schedule on the project. We have both human, turian, and asari scientists working on this." He shut down the screen and data streams returned in its place. "I'm told that if things don't improve soon, it won't be finished until next year in mid-November."

"Shit." Anderson shook his head in disgust. "There may not be a galaxy left by then."

"However, there is good news," Hackett said with a smile. "John and Ann Shepard both told me that the Geth and Quarians have called a cease fire and have agreed to put aside their war and help out with the Reapers. The Quarians landed on Rannoch a week ago and the civilians were allowed to stay while the soldiers make their way back here to help. 25,800 ships are staying in orbit around Rannoch while the rest are being sent to other areas that need help. I've also been told that 16,000 Quarians arrived on Menae to assist the Turans, and another 120,000 are headed this way to be put into teams with other species to help out in any way shape or form. They are also sending all of their scientists to help with the Crucible." He paused and looked down at his omni-tool as it just pinged. "The Geth have come to a consensus. They are sending 20% of their troops to protect the Crucible, another 20% to assist in its construction, 10% to Palaven, and another 12% to various regions of the galaxy to assist civilian evacuations."

"And the rest?" Anderson asked looking eagerly at Steven, who smiled.

"Half are staying to protect Rannoch and the other half are headed to Earth." Hackett leaned back and for the first time in a long time felt that they may have a fighting chance.

"Now if the Shepards can work their magic on the Krogan," David said as he stood up to leave. Hackett followed, and as the two men entered the elevator to go down to the main halls of the station, both were hoping and silently praying that help wouldn't be too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay!!!! I am back! My awesome brother-in-law fixed my very sick computer that had 70 maleware programs eating at it. So expect one more update this week, then I'll be putting out regular updates once or twice a month; depending on the story.


	19. Chapter 19: Something New

**Chapter 19** : _Something New_

* * *

 **Date:** _March 28, 2184_

 **Location** _: Arcturus Station_

Javik's eyes glared at the krogan in front of him. The krogan did likewise to him. To his left, Javik looked at the puny human pilot and to his right was giant muscled human James. A challenge from all sides had been issued. He couldn't lose this one; if he did then…

"I call," came Joker's voice into everybody's thoughts.

James put down his cards and smirked. "Beat a full house Creaky." Joker groaned as he threw down his cards. The adolescent Krogan roared in anger. Javik laid his face up and smirked as James victory was suddenly gone. "No freakin' way!"

Javik's smirk grew. On the table was a royal flush. Best hand he'd had all night too. Finally the human could shut the hell up.

There was a swish as the door behind the men opened and Ann walked into the room, next to her were the two Mordins and behind them was Garrus and Nyreen talking about rifles and such. Ann smirked at seeing Javik playing cards. "Who won?" she asked nobody in particular.

"This round?" Joker asked with a groan. "Or the nine others?"

"Both," she stated with a smile.

Javik grunted causing Ann to raise an eyebrow at everybody else. "Javik, score one, Grunt score two and James the rest." Joker responded. "Why do I even try?" he shook his head.

"Because you like to be around people," came Serena's voice from behind Garrus and Nyreen. The two turians moved so that the now five month pregnant human could move past them.

Jeff smiled as he looked at his lovely girlfriend. "Aye, but I love looking at you more." His eyes traveled her body causing her to blush.

Serena blushed at Jeff's compliment and heard a snort from Grunt. "She carries your young cripple, of course you're proud to look at her."

Serena and Ann both shook their heads at the krogan's words. "Alright, enough." Ann spoke as she cleared to wreck rooms table and place a holo projector in the middle of it. An image appeared of the reaper forces attacking Earth, and then it switched to Palaven, Thessia, and Tuchanka. "These are the latest images from our allies in the areas.

"Just say that it was the Geth, Shepard," came Wrex's deep voice from the corner of the room where he'd been watching everybody.

"Alright, from our allies; the Geth." She touched her Omni-tool and the images changed to a station where there were reaper occuli and reaper dreadnoughts were fixing it and putting pieces together. "This was sent to us forty-five minutes ago from geth platform named Insidious; who sacrificed himself to send up this data." More images uploaded to the halo projector one showing a heavily damaged collector ship sending packages to the reaperfied station, and the pods returning to the collector ship empty. Another image showed a new type of reaper that looked to be a hybrid between a collector and a krogan/turian brute. It was huge. At least ten or twelve feet tall, it carried what looked like a particle canon from a ship on its arm and it wore not armor because it's body seemed to make up for it with natural or unnatural armor. This got the krogan, turians and Javik upset. Then the final one was what surprised them. It was a reaperized replica of the _SSV Normandy_.

Joker spoke up at seeing it. "Is that what I think it is?" he questioned at seeing the original Normandy looking just as beautiful if not more dangerous than it originally was.

"Yeah, this is the main reason I brought this to your guy's attention." She paused at shuddered at the image. "It would seem that they made a replica of the original Normandy; but they do not seem to have the engines finished. John and I agree with Anderson that this ship **must not be finished**." She put emphasis on the final part. "So at 1120 hours tomorrow; we'll be arriving at the destroyed Alpha relay site and we will be destroying this station."

"Who is the we?" James asked itching for this fight.

"Sorry James, this one is a space fight, no ground teams." Ann said sadly. She brought up another image. It was a geiger counter like image with a needle in the center glowing bright red for danger. "Before Insidious self-terminated he sent this image and the message: Too much indoctrination on ground. Organic foot soldiers will be in danger. Must fight ship to ship battles. Safer, more efficient than ground team." Scratching the back of her neck she turned to her team, "however all ground teams must report; just in case things go wrong. John is bringing his ship, along with the turians the _Orpza_ , the _Narclaim_ , the _Tarclaim_ , and a batarian the _Incarserous_ are joining up with us, along with fifteen geth Dreadnoughts and three quarian ships the _Nipza_ , the _Nar Nar_ , and _Quib Quib_ will be our distraction teams as we take that station and the fake Normandy out. So head to our ship and get ready." Everybody stood up from where they were sitting began to walk to the exit. "Serena, I need to talk to you." Serena sighed, already knowing what was going to happen as Ann smiled at her and wrapped an arm around the pregnant girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Sorry guys, I kinda went AWOL on all ya. I've been extremely busy now that summer is here and all. Hope y'all understand. I promise to get this story finished this year though. It's only a few more chapters and the last big battle will occur.


	20. Chapter 20: Battle Surprise!

**Chapter 20** : _Battle Surprise_

* * *

**Date** : _March 29, 2184_

**Location** : _Viper Nebula / Destroyed Alpha Relay Site_

Joker looked over at his co-pilot Angie and smiled. It turned out that the girl was not only a brilliant science lady, but knew how to pilot ships, including large frigates like the Normandy SR-2. Plus, she wasn't half bad to look at. He stared at his console and began to check the names of ships off his screen as they reported in. That was when he heard his own voice over the ship comms and frowned. ' _I'm never gonna get use to him being here,'_ he thought as the voice continued to talk to the other ships and begin coordinating with them under Ann Shepard's instructions, which came directly from Admiral Anderson and Admiral Hackett. "What's there to report Joker," came John's voice from behind him, making Joker jump a bit.

"A. Almost everybody is here and in position, just waiting for the Turians," He said as he spun his chair around. "And B. Don't sneak up on me. I'm already prone to break if I fall. I don't need to add to the chart that the reason I fell was because my CO scared the shit out of me."

John laughed. "Why, you could go on record saying that it was John Shepard who scared you."

Jeff snorted. "Yeah, that would be cool, but I have an image to uphold. If people thought I was easy to scare they'd be doing it all the time."

Angie lifted an eyebrow and smirked at what Jeff had just said, when her console lit up and she sent the arrivals to Jeff. "The _Orpza_ , the _Narclaim_ , and the _Tarclaim_ have reported in," she said. "They've also brought with them some friends, including the Azura, the Fahzwa, and the Clamp."

John looked out the window of the Normandy and watched as three Turian ships flew past them and three more dreadnoughts seemed to just appear out of nowhere followed by eight new frigates, ten carrier ships, and twenty unclassified large civilian ships. "Who controls the civilian ships?

Jeff watched as Angie's fingers danced across her screen before he could even start. "A man named Zaeed Massani," she said when suddenly twenty more ships appeared - a nice mix of fighters, bomb carriers, dreadnoughts, and one very large flagship that had an unmistakable Eclipse symbol on the sides of the ship. "Comm call for you Commander."

"Patch it through." He watched as an elderly looking Asari woman appeared on Jeff's holo projector that was next to his console. Her green eyes bore into his and he felt as if her eyes could see into his very soul. She wore unusual attire. Clothed entirely in a red jumpsuit and wore a red crown or tiara on her head. "My name is Samara; I am a Justicar of the Justicar Order. I have been ordered by the Matriarchs of Illium, Thessia, and Counsel of Matriarchs to come here to yours and Commander Ann Shepard's aid. The Eclipse mercenaries have been kind enough to lend the Matriarch Counsel their ships and their foot soldiers."

"Just soldiers?" came Ann's voice as her image appeared on Jeff's second holo projector which was next to Angie's seat.

The Justicar looked over at the second Commander and smiled. "No. I also have YMIR, FENRIS, and LOKI Mechs."

John and Ann both smiled as a gleam appeared in their eyes. "Sounds good," John said. "Have you been debriefed on what you and your people are to do?"

"I have." The Justicar bowed her head. "I and my people are to sacrifice ourselves and resources to ensure that this station, ships, and husks do not leave this system no matter what." She smiled. "The chances of us surviving this are very slim."

John sighed. "We thank you for your sacrifice and if your goddess is willing, I hope to meet you face to face after this."

The Justicar smiled. "If the Goddess is willing." Her image vanished.

* * *

As the groups of humans, Turians, Quarians, Geth, and Asari ships drew closer to the station the Reaper ships around the station went on alert and began their own approach to the organics and synthetic ships. Among the opposing organic and Geth ships more ships began to join them. The Krogan mercenaries known as the Blood Pack were sent by Aria to assist in this battle. As they began the final approach most could feel a thickness appear in the air. The Turians would swear it was their Spirits that were coming together, the krogan, quarians and batarians would tell later it was the ancestors blessing this battle. The asari would say it was the Goddess of war saying for them to take down this evil. Whatever or whoever it really was gave the people hope.

So as the red beams from the Reaper cannons began to light and the first blasts came from the organics fleet it was then that something miraculous that happened. It would seem that at that moment a dangerous enemy once thought gone suddenly joined forces with the people. A ship ten times the size of the reapers appeared and sent a blast right through the reaper forces; tearing through shields, ripping through hulls, and obliterating the reapers in one full stroke. Asari eyes widened, Krogan roared as they saw the once gone enemy suddenly appear, and Turians for once felt true fear. "Rachni!" came the ominous yell from one ship captain to another until the entire fleet knew what this ship was.

"How?" John asked nobody in particular. "I killed the queen on Noveria."

"We sent out a signal for any organics to help us to destroy the Old Machines," came a Geth's voice behind John.

"Legion, right?" John asked

"Correct Shepard-Commander."

"You could've told us," he said looking at the colossal ship as its cannons began obliterating the station, the collector ships, and the Reaperized Normandy ship. "Looks like we're not really needed here." John laughed as the last of the Reaper ships was vaporized in front of the fleet. It was then that the ship turned around and headed towards them. John felt a bit of dread and a bead of sweat ran down his neck as it came to a full stop in front of the fleet. The number one thought on everybody's minds; except for the krogan, was _Now what?_

* * *

Serena paced back and forth as she waited for word about the battle. She was worried, her back ached, and now her feet hurt. ' _I hate being pregnant_.' She thought as she looked out the window in the room. She was in an apartment that had been given to her by Admiral Anderson. Back in Ann's universe she'd met the man once or twice, but got the feeling he was wiser than he sometimes let on. Then there was Hackett, who seemed like a major pain in the ass, but the kind of pain in the ass that a grandfather or uncle who liked to pick on you kind of way. Rubbing her swelling stomach she sighed as she gave up on getting any news at this time and decided to take a walk down the halls of the Grissom Academy. As she did so she saw Kahlee Sanders talking to one of the students about him not making any Mass Effect fields around other students just because he was bored. The boy walked away afterwards causing Miss Sanders to turn her attention on Serena.

"Ah Serena, you look," she paused as she carefully chose her next words. "Not very comfortable."

The pregnant woman snorted. "Nope. I'm not." She sighed, causing Kahlee to smile.

"Well you're five months in, only four more to go." Her smile broadening, when suddenly the klaxons began blaring, followed by a large explosion that was tightly muted, but rocked the station because of its closeness. "That was an explosion," Kahlee stated as she ran down to the control room to see what was going on.

Serena turned her attention to the students who were standing around the wrecked room, their eyes wide with fear while others look excited. A young girl looked at Serena and approached Serena. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I'm not sure-"Serena looked up when she heard another explosion, this one was way too close and sounded like it was inside the school's station.

"Rodriguez!" came a yell from one of the boys. The girl next to Serena turned her attention to the boy. "Get the heck away from the doors! We need to get somewhere safe."

"Serena," came Sanders voice over the comm. systems. "Get the children to the escape pods. It's Cerberus. They're attacking the school. They haven't found a way inside yet, so get them to the pods and get away. Those pods are pre-programmed to take you guys to Arcturus Station. Now go!"

"You heard her," Serena yelled. "To the escape pods! NOW!"

A chorus of "Yes Ma'ams" went through the group of children as they began running through the station. Serena was a step ahead of them to check around corners to ensure nobody was about to shoot at them. She pulled her gun out of its hiding place, which wasn't much of one being that it was strapped to her lower back.

As they rounded the final corner, Serena ducked back behind the corner wall. Standing between them and their escape was Miranda Lawson. The woman's eyes glowed eerily and Serena knew something was wrong. She looked like she'd been reaperized by the Illusive Man. Her eyes were glowing with synthetic optics, her left arm looked like it had a cannon strapped to it and it was glowing a biotic blue glow _. 'Shit!'_ was her only thought as she continued to stare at Miranda. Swallowing hard, Serena looked at the group of children and sighed. She needed to do something a quickly. She then looked at the boy who earlier had gotten into trouble by Sanders and suddenly an idea popped into Serena's head.

"Hey," she whispered as she looked at the boy who looked at her. "Need your help kid." He nodded and moved forward. "See that woman down there?" He peered around the corner and nodded at her. "See that heavy looking metal box near her?" He nodded again. "I need you to pick it up and throw it as hard as you can and knock that bitch out." The boy smiled when he heard the curse word. Glowing brightly the boy focused as best as he could and threw the metal box at Miranda, seemingly knocking her out. As soon as the woman fell, the children and Serena ran to the escape pod. Just as she went to enter the pod, Serena felt something grab her leg, looking down she saw Miranda lifting a gun to shoot her. Pointing hers down at the Cerberus agent, Serena didn't even blink as she shot the woman, blood spraying everywhere, including on herself. Without looking back Serena entered the pod, hit the red button as soon as she got into it and was shot off into space and away from exploding Grissom Academy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Holy crap! I finished another chapter! Lmbo! Was this one surprising to anybody? I hope so. Reviews feed me. So please give me something to eat.


	21. Chapter 21: War Song

**Chapter 21** : _War Song_

* * *

 

**Date** : _March 29, 2184_

**Location** : _Viper Nebula / Destroyed Alpha Relay Site_

 

Joker’s eyes were wide as he looked at the Rachni ship. Ten times bigger than the Reaper ships that had just been obliterated by this one Rachni ship, its guns were bigger and looked ancient. As the drone he had sent out finished scanning the ship he found that the shields were fifty times stronger than anything the SR-1, SR-2 or the new SR-3 had ever had. The hull was made out of a metal he couldn’t identify and the core was more definitely not made with element zero. Then there was the mysterious canons that had torn through the Reapers shields as if they had been made of butter. This Rachni ship was a new breed of ship all together, which possibly made it the most dangerous ship in the galaxy; next to the Reapers of course.

 

Upon hearing the clicking of heals coming up the ramp behind him he turned to see Ann looking out the cockpit windows. “Looks like some friends have come to help.” She muttered breathlessly.

 

“Yeah, but John killed the Rachni Queen on Noveria, according to his mission report of that particular mission.” Joker replied.

 

“Doesn’t mean she was the last of her kind.” Ann stated remembering that she too had killed the Rachni Queen, only to find another one when she’d gone to help Aralakh Company when she’d gone through the Rachni Relay to Utukku.

 

Suddenly everybody in every ship heard in their minds a gentle voice with images and battles lost by the Rachni and won by the krogan, followed by images of Protheans attacking Reapers and ordering Rachni to destroy the husked Protheans. “ _Songs of war have been sung by our kind many times. The first by the ones called Protheans, who used our kinds biotic powers to destroy their enemies, first by conquering other primitive species, and then when those who sing sour songs came to destroy them we were called upon once more; but our kind was not meant to fight. After Light Singer and her broods were killed in battles it was decided amongst the other Queens to stay away from other organics and let them war amongst themselves. Then the sour singers found Singing Planet. We tried to resist their song songs, many fell to their songs; whilst others like myself, Victory Singer, had the strength to resist and took our eggs that were not infected by the songs of dissidence and found a place where we could sing in peace. We could hear the songs of war being sung by those who could not resist the songs and we hear the songs of war by those known as Krogan. We sang mournful songs for many years for those who had been lost. Then there were no songs of war being song for many years and we thrived in our peace. Now once again the sour singers are back and once again a song of war has begun. We cannot ignore these songs like we have in the past and we will help, we will sing songs of destruction to the sour noted ones and this time it will be their songs that end and not ours or yours. Afterwards our songs of victory will be sung throughout the galaxy so that all organic and non-organics may one day know who destroyed the sour singers and how it all occurred._ ”

 

As the song ended Ann felt as if her head had once again been tossed in the blender on high like it had when she’d found the beacon so long ago. She then turned her head around slowly as she heard several footsteps headed her way. She smiled as she spotted Grunt, Garrus and Javik. The Prothean looked out the window of the cockpit and seemed amused as he looked at the familiar shape of a Rachni ship. “It is good to see that one thing hasn’t changed.” He muttered. “The attack dogs are here to help.”

 

“ _Be careful who you call an ‘attack dog’ ancient._ ” came Victory Singer’s voice. “ _My people have suffered too much over the millenniums. We are not mindless beasts. We are sentient beings and we are here to fight and defend our right to exist!_ ”

 

“Somebody sounds pissed.” Joker smirked as Javik was forced to shut up with a single look from the commander.

 

“I am certain Javik meant no disrespect.” Ann said trying to smooth things over.

 

“ _We have heard the song of you and your other._ ” Victory Singer stated. “ _We give you our songs. Do what you wish with them._ ”

 

“How many of you are there?” Ann asked, it was a simple question after all.

 

As the silence dragged on Ann began to think that perhaps there wasn’t that many when suddenly Ann’s answer became apparent as not one, but thousands of ships suddenly de-cloaked and showed that even if all they had seen was one ship, it had turned out that, that ship wasn’t even the biggest ship. As a ship literally the size of a small planet appeared off the bow side of the SR-3, but even that wasn’t the biggest ship. The largest one seemed to be three times the size of the small planet sized ship. It had the same glossy look to it that the one Victory was on. Its canons seemed even larger and even older than Victory’s had. The ship gave off an aura that it was somehow very much alive, even though it was not possible. Then Victory’s voice came. “ _We are many and we shall not be defeated by the sour singers_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I know it's a short chapter, but I couldn't help it. I'm working on my next project A Different Story on fanfiction.net. Any ways I hope you enjoyed this chapter update.


	22. Chapter 22: Little Bugs, Spiders, Oh my!

**Chapter 22** : _Little Bugs, Spiders, Oh my!_

* * *

 **Date** : _April 2, 2184_

 **Location** : _Unknown location_

There was a sudden lurch as Serena felt herself launch forward. Her eyes flew open as the straps around her body suddenly tightened. Gasping, she looked around herself. The children from the academy were partially asleep; having also been forced away by the sudden lurch. The memories suddenly came back as she took in the appearances of the children and upon noticing that they were in a life pod. Unbuckling herself from her seat she walked across the large pod and touched the computer screen. Luckily it still works and was calculating where the pod's automatic systems were sending them; however looking out the small port hole she didn't need the computer to tell her where they were. She'd recognize the planet they were heading for anywhere. After all it had once been her home, a home she never thought she'd see again.

Earth.

The once beautiful green and blue planet was aflame. Its skies were blackened out with dark thick plumes of smoke caused by the fires that the Reapers were creating with their attacks. She was home, but not. This may not have been her Earth, but seeing it on fire like that was enough for her to give a choked sob. Covering her mouth with her right hand to silence any other noises she turned, covering the port hole with her body. Turning she saw the younger children looking at her with curiosity; while the older ones looked to her; an adult, for their orders on what they should do. But she didn't know what to do. She was pregnant. She wasn't allowed to fight. That was why she'd been sent to Grimson Academy. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and counted to three. When she opened her eyes, determination had replaced her fear. She **_had_** to fight, if not for herself; for her child and for these children who were now under her protection and command. They **_had_** to survive!

* * *

Jeff looked out the port into nothingness. He'd been feeling empty once again since they'd heard what had happened to Grimson Academy a day ago. _Serena…. Why_? He thought as he pulled the bill of his cap downward to hide his eyes which were red from rubbing them. He couldn't cry. Not yet. He felt another shudder of emotions run through his body. He was angry, sad, grief stricken, and he wanted to hit, kill or do something that would cause somebody, anybody enough pain that they'd feel as shitty as he felt at that very moment. But no, he couldn't do that! Not only would he end up hurting himself; but Serena would never want him to act like that. Taking a deep breath he spoke. "EDI, take control." As he said this he stood and walked away. For the first time Jeff Moreau just didn't feel like staring outside the port window of the cockpit.

* * *

Aberdeen looked over the holo of the entire rachni flotilla and scratched his scarred cheek before leaning back in his chair and chuckling. ' _For a bunch of bugs they know how to pack the heat,'_ he mused to himself as he watched John and Urgnot Bakara walk into the room, with Wrex strangling behind them. The female once known as Eve by the Mordin's, was actually one of the best and probably brilliant krogan minds; besides Wrex, that Aberdeen had the honor of meeting. He'd met a lot of krogan, but never a female and never one who could actually give a salarian a go on intellectual topics. "So what's up Shades?" came Vega's voice.

Aberdeen really hated that nickname he'd been given by the Lieutenant. "I think that the Council races could really learn a thing or two from these rachni," he stated as he brought the specs up of a 'destroyer' which was the size of a human dreadnaught warship. "This ship has a ten foot thick hull, followed by biotic barriers," this got eyebrows to shoot upwards. "Plus the normal barriers and then some sort of metal barrier that's reading as Unknown Metal."

John blinked. "Did you say 'Biotic Barriers'?"

Aberdeen chuckled. "Yeah, that got me too." He pulled up footage that a geth platform had sent him. "This was sent from Meticulous Merdok who captured the entire fight."

"Who?" Vega asked as he sat down across from Wrex, who was sitting next to Bakara around the holo table.

"He's a Geth Prime Platform," he explained. Everybody sat in silence as the footage began to replay the battle. Aberdeen paused it just as a ripple effect was shot off by the rachni ship that would soon tear right through the Reapers hull and destroy it.

"Holy-"Vega began his jaw dropping at the sight of the attack.

"Shit," John finished as he leaned back in the chair between Vega and Aberdeen. "Biotics, who knew?" he chuckled at the weak joke.

"Commander, there is a rachni in the airlock asking entrance." EDI stated sounding bit annoyed.

"On my way," he said as he turned and left the room, both Vega and Aberdeen flanking him. As they came to the airlock EDI released the locks that prevented anybody from entering the ship. The doors opened to reveal a fully grown Brood Warrior rachni who had pulled its legs under itself in order to seem less threatening.

"I sing peaceful songs towards Warrior Singers," it said, its voice sounding like a very young male child who had just been caught with its hand in the cookie jar.

"We sing peace as well," John stated. "I'm Commander John Shepard, who are you?"

"I was sent by Victory Singer to become your Brother Singer in midst of battle," it said. "I have not earned by battle song yet; but hope to with so many Warrior Singers on this ship."

"So, you're a rookie?" Vega asked.

"I do not understand this term," was Vega's answer from the young rachni.

"It means you're new to this whole fighting stuff and haven't fought in many battles," Aberdeen tried to explain.

The creature thought for a moment and then replied. "Yes, I am a rookie."

John sighed. "Alright." He side stepped away from the rachni. "How many of you are there going to be coming on my ship?"

"Commander!" came Ian's panicked voice from the cargo bay over the ships comm. system.

"What is it Ian?" John asked sounding a bit upset at being interrupted.

"There are a bunch of tiny rachni that just appeared out of nowhere in the cargo bay." John suddenly heard a female scream.

"What was that?" John asked as he headed towards the elevator and away from the rachni brood warrior who was following him, but stopped when the elevator door shut behind John.

"Uh, a tech," Ian replied as the little rachni began to crawl up the wall of the cargo bay causing the young man to shiver at the sight of fist sized bugs climbing walls. Ian turned his head as the elevator doors opened to reveal John, Vega, and Aberdeen who all paused at the sight before them.

One bug suddenly dropped from the ceiling onto Aberdeen's shoulder. The man looked at the tiny rachni and said. "If you value your life, you'll jump off my shoulder." Surprising the little one did as it was told.

It was then that the elevator doors opened again, revealing the brood warrior. "These are all the Little Singers that Victory Singer wished to have join you."

"Little Singers?" John asked

"Workers sing too low for you to hear them," The brood warrior explained. "They are singing songs of building and strength right now. They will make your ship like ours and make it sing like our ships do," he explained with pride. "Once completed, Biotic Commander Singer can sing battle songs loudly and send out biotic waves to destroy Sour Singers." As he finished saying this, three metal boxes appeared in the cargo bay.

John sighed. "Okay, but you may want to warn people in advance that your people are coming aboard our ships to improve them."

Aberdeen slapped his hand on John's shoulder. "Think of the powerhouse that those asari ships are going to be."

John's eyes widened. He hadn't thought of that. His eyes went back to normal when a shit-eating grin appeared on his face. "Can you imagine how those girls are gonna react to the rachni?"

"Somehow I don't think they'll be 'Embrace Eternity' with them anytime soon." John smirked mischievously.

All three men began laughing, while Ian looked at them as if they were all crazy and shook his head thinking, 'T _hey're all crazy. I should've stayed on Ann's ship.'_ He then noticed little Tali looking like she was having a little bit of a panic attack at the sight of all of the tiny rachni. Sighing, he walked over to her to calm her down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> M-Angel: *sighs* Well, I'm happy to announce that this story is almost over. Unfortunately there will be one more in this series, but I'm going to wait on publishing that story. I have begun a new story under a different game series called A Different Story and I'll be doing that story a for awhile. Also I've got a poll going on. I want you guys to vote on what's gonna happen at the end of the story.
> 
> xoxoangii: I think it would drive me crazy seeing Little Singers crawling around my ship... anywayss remember to vote on the poll!
> 
> M-Angel: So review and then go vote please? Thanks! ^ _^
> 
> Poll Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/804298/


	23. Chapter 23: Battle For Life

**Chapter 23** : _Battle For Life_

* * *

**Date** : _June 1, 2184_

**Location** : Sol System / _Earth_

Darkness caused by the heavy smoke laden atmosphere covered the once blue and green planet once known to be the home world to several billion human beings. The planet Earth was no longer shiny like a new marble, but covered by smoke caused by planetary bombardments from space. Husks roamed the planet, controlled by the reapers. The explosions rocked bunkers that were several feet underground. These bunkers held the last remnants of the human population. Across the world these bunkers had popped up like they'd been there the whole time, but in truth had been built by the survivors in pure, unadulterated panic and fear. In one of these bunkers in the providence of the once great Australian Nation was where Serena and the children had landed months ago. At the time there hadn't been that many husks around, but once they had gotten to a suburb of the Sydney area the husks had come running. Only human husks seemed to be in the sector of Earth, at the time. Presently they were traveling in the dugout bunkers underground. Men, women, and children whimpered and cried as more and more survivors were found by the biotic children and brought down to be cared for by Serena and any medical officer they could find.

Serena, finally finding time to rest, slumped against a wall near the airlock that led outside to the horrors that were going on above them. Sighing, she gently touched her very large stomach. She was due soon and they still couldn't get a message out of the system that there were survivors here. ' _Does he think I'm dead?'_ she thought as her thoughts traveled to Joker. God she loved him and she prayed he'd find her before the baby came.

"Serena!" came a yell. Turning her head she saw a young marine running towards her. "We just got the comms to work. They're coming!" He was so excited. The young man had been one of the first aussies to find the pod when it had landed on Earth back in April.

"Who?" She was curious as to who the hell would ever come here to save them. Maybe in the deep recesses of her mind she knew, but with worry and fatigue finally taking its toll on her, she just felt like taking a shotgun and walking out and shooting everything in sight until she was overrun by them and death took her from this life.

"The Shepards!" he yelled happily. "They've brought everybody to help."

"Everybody?" she questioned, her mind just starting to understand what this meant. _Jeff, he was coming for her_. "Help me up." The marine, Jonah, if she recalled; reached down and grabbed her and helpd her stand. Waddling down the halls to the comm room, she saw John Shepard standing in a holo and next to him was Ann. The two seemed to have finished a grand speech, which had the men and women in the room readying themselves for a grand battle. Stepping forward she saw Ann turn herself to her and for a moment the Commanders eyes widened before returning to normal and the holo vanished.

"This is it folks," a weathered man stated as he grabbed his own weapons. "You heard the Shepards. We fight until our last breaths. We fight for everything and everybody. The krogan and geth will be showing up any moment. The turians and asari afterwards. The elcor will be the first shock troopers to drop. I want volunteers." He saw Serena standing there. "Lavargus, I want you and the other medics to get our medical facilities up and running. I doubt the reapers will leave many survivors in the next few battles, but you never know."

"Sir, she's a field medic-" began one of the biotic kids, Michael, she thought if she knew the deep cracky voice. She looked and smiled to see that it was indeed the snarky teen.

"And is pregnant," the man interjected. "She's at a higher risk if she goes out there than if she stays here." He turned and began to yell out other orders as Serena made her way back to the medical area and hoped they had enough supplies.

* * *

Jeff's hands flew across the holographic screens as he shot a fighter out of his way and made the Normandy fly towards Vancouver, Canada, where Alliance HQ had once stood. Admiral Anderson walked up behind him and pointed out a vantage point where they could land. "You know sir," he began, "I do know my way around this city too."

The older man chuckled. "Oh I'm sure our realities are quite the same in this sector, but you never know."

Snorting, Jeff rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh," was his only reply as he set the boosters to let them land. It was just as the back hatch had opened that the alarms began blaring.

"Occuli inbound in two minutes," EDI spoke as an image appeared on Jeff's holo screen.

"Shit!" the pilot cursed as he opened a comm to Ann. "Shepard, you better get your pretty little ass off this ship asap! We got occuli headed this way."

"I read you Jeff," Ann replied back as she, Javik, Garrus, Grim, Grunt, and Jack all got off of the Normandy. As the back hatch lifted the Normandy began to take off. Out of the corner of her eye Ann saw the occuli activate their thrusters and were about to slam into the side of the Normandy when suddenly the new Rachni weapon systems came online, and a biotic shockwave hit the occuli and destroyed them. Turning away from the scene, she divided her HQ and see what's left of the old site. "See if you can find survivors-"

"What if we find some, but they're indoctrinated?" Garrus asked with a raised brow, something he'd picked up from his wife.

Ann smirked and was about to answer when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see that one of the two brood warriors had also come with them. ' _How the heck didn't I see him jump with us?'_ she silently wondered because the large spider-like creature was almost as big as Grunt and was hard to miss.

"I will sing and will hear their replying song. If dissidence is sung with their notes that show deceit I will tell brother warrior," the rachni assured Garrus.

"Guess that'll have to do," Garrus said as he pulled his sniper off of his back and headed off with the other two.

Turning towards the Prothean Javik and Grim, Ann looked at them for a moment. "Our job is to find the new underground bunkers and see if we can find out who's in charge of this sector and hook up with HQ in London."

* * *

John kept his assault rifle in his hands as he, Wrex, Ian, Aberdeen, and the Geth unit League headed through the rumble of London towards HQ. The little rachni workers were everywhere, taking down the easier human husks and leaving the hybrids and asari banshees for them to kill. As he made a warp on one of the marauders, he watched Wrex slam his fists into another marauder and rip its skull off of its shoulders, and with a pop the head was ripped off and thrown behind the krogan, who suddenly smirked at his handiwork and spit on its corpse.

Aberdeen's mechanical red eye focused on the enemy ahead of them and he jumped up onto a ledge of a building and took up a snipers position and began blowing one head off of one husk followed by another and another.

John's head whipped around when heard Ian's war-cry and watched as the former c-sec officer jump into the air and land on a banshee and the plunge his knife into the creatures tentacle skull and rip the head off with the knife a second later.

If one were to suddenly look upon the battle scene you'd see this cycle repeated several times by each member. Aberdeen sniping skills would take off the heads of the enemy ahead of them and John and Wrex throwing their biotics around and taking out a marauder here and a banshee there; meanwhile Ian could be seen killing anything that came too close with his knife or shooting with his pistols whatever was trying to kill him.

However, no matter how good somebody was, eventually they'd make a mistake and that's what happened with Ian. As an asari banshee advanced on him from the front, he failed to notice the one behind him. When his gun went off and killed the one in front of him the banshee behind him took this moment to kill him. However, it would seem that fate wanted Ian Shaw to live, for whatever reason that may have been. As the banshee made its move, another gun went off and the asari fell harmlessly to the ground. Turning his head Ian saw the dead banshee and looked at the turian who had killed it and smirk. "Melanis, what are you doing here?"

The female turian smirked as she cocked her head at him. "Couldn't let an ass like you get yourself killed," she replied. "Made a promise to Garrus to keep your ass alive." She put her back to his as another wave of enemies came at them.

"Looks like we need to find another way to HQ," John snorted as he pulled his biotic lit hand away from another bloody corpse.

"Ha!" Wrex laughed. "And leave this fun behind?" The krogan battlemaster suddenly turned and plowed through a dozen banshees, shooting them through the gut with each blast of his shotgun. "Let's go pussies!" he yelled as he suddenly became the leader of their group.

Turning towards the female turian John spoke. "Where's your group?" he asked as he loaded his gun with another magazine.

Melanis smirked. "They already made it to HQ. I became a distraction to the enemy, one of the salarians got hurt," she explained. "I got turned around. Then I found you guys and decided to help."

John nodded. "Appreciated." He put his gun away as they suddenly came to a barricade, which slid open and revealed London HQ. The encampment was a disaster. It looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle of the encampment. A lone drell was sitting on the curb with his face in his hands. He seemed to be praying. Approaching him John began asking questions. "What happened here?"

"The reapers found us," the drell replied. His voice was young, but wavered with fear and defeat. "Three of those ships began bombarding our encampment. We-" he voice suddenly failed him as he looked down to the ground. Kneeling down, John placed his hand on the young drell's shoulder. "I'm Kolyat Krios. I've been helping in finding survivors and bringing them here. I brought in a young pregnant woman and she looked to be close to her time." He paused. "It was as soon as I brought her here that she began laughing like she'd lost her mind. He then dropped a round white ball of light that exploded. I couldn't see or hear. When my eyes could finally focus she and thousands of others had fallen to the ground dead. It was then the ships found us and began bombarding this camp." He shook his head. "I do not know why I have survived. I should be dead."

"Krios, did anybody survive besides you?" Aberdeen asked as he looked at the wasteland of the HQ.

"If they did, they'd be at the bunkers." He said solemnly. "They are in the western part of the city, but that's also where the reapers are currently focusing their assault."

John nodded. "That's also where the beam to the Citadel is." He sighed. "Do you know who's in charge?"

Kolyat nodded. "Yes." he smiled. "Somebody named Esheel. That is all I know. I believe he's a salarian."

Aberdeen began chuckling. "A salarian in charge of human marines and civilians." He looked at John and Ian, who shook his head. "Wonder how that's playing out."

"We better go and find out." John touched his omni-tool and brought up his comm to Anderson and the SR-3 Normandy. "Admiral Anderson, sir?"

"What is it Commander?" came the gruff voice.

"HQ has been destroyed, we're heading towards the bunkers that are near the beam." There was a sad sigh from the Admiral. "We did however find one survivor, his name is Kolyat Krios."

"Very well, I'll do a background trace and see what we can find out about the young man. Keep me posted. Anderson out."

John shut off the light of his omni-tool and looked at his team. "Let's move out." He ordered as he pulled his weapons back out and they began the long trek towards the center of the city and towards a destiny where the fate of the entire galaxy would be fought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> M-Angel: Wow, 2,189 words to this chapter! Huh, maybe the last chapter will be longer?  
> xoxoangii: Maybe you can add one or two more words. :P  
> M-Angel: Okay, so with this story almost over, I'll be focusing on my other story. Then around Christmas time I'll post the final part to this series.  
> xoxoangii: Please remember to R&R! And check out her other story that she will be working on, "A Different Story"!


	24. Chapter 24: Death Angel Comes

**Chapter 24** : _Death Angel Comes_

* * *

**Date** : _June 1, 2184_

**Location** : _Earth / Vancouver_

Liara T'soni ran as fast as her feet could carry her. Since the attack on the Citadel, she'd escaped first to her homeworld to see what she could do to ensure that her people could fight the coming storm and survive it. However, once on Thessia, she saw that it was already under attack. The Citadel, which had turned into one big relay, must've sent the reaper ships to precise coordinates in order for there to be soldiers already on the ground. The monstrosities that her people were being turned into were out of some nightmare. She'd then been saved by Commander Ann Shepard when the woman had come to Thessia looking for something, that's when she met the most arrogant person in the entire universe, and possibly the most wonderful discovery: a Prothean named Javik. She tried to talk to him nicely, but he was arrogant, mean spirited(though she guessed he had his reasons), and had a barbaric way of looking at things; especially other species who were more evolved than the last time he had seen them and **he** had the right to call _them_ primitives! She had gotten tired of constantly being called either a primitive in her thinking or just plain asari. So once Ann had brought the SR-3 into dock for fuel, she'd asked for permission to leave, which had surprised the commander, but she had approved it.

After a bad stint with some human and turian marines, she had been sent to Earth to help in fighting. The human who had sent her obviously hadn't believed her when she'd told him that she wasn't much of a fighter, that she was _just_ a scientist. In his mindset she was an asari, which meant biotics, which meant she **_could_** fight. Once on Earth, all hell broke loose. One moment they were actually starting to make leeway when suddenly these huge monstrosities that looked like somebody had tried to breed a krogan with a turian and put it in a blender on high and then released whatever came out. **Marauders** was the name some humans were calling them and name fit the beasts.

Now though, her entire platoon was dead. She was running as fast as she could to wherever was currently safe, but where was safe when it came to these monsters? The answer? Nowhere.

As she turned a corner, she triggered an explosion by running through a laser mine field. Once the laser light was broken by her foot the ensuing explosions where set off. She was thrown fifty feet into the air and landed on her back, the air knocked out of her lungs, causing her to gasp for breath. When she tried to get back up she fell face first into the ground. She threw her hands in front of herself to prevent the fall, but found only one arm reacting to her brain's commands. Still not processing what happened she looked at her left arm and gasped, all that was left of her arm was a small stub. Looking down at her legs she saw that her right had been blasted off at the knee. That was when shock began to set in and she felt panic building in her. ' _This can't be the end,'_ she thought as the adrenaline began to dissipate and was replaced with pain. Oh so much pain! She wanted to scream, cry, something, but it seemed that her lungs decided to stop working and left her gasping for air.

Suddenly she heard the familiar thumping of boots on concrete and voices too, but she couldn't understand what was being said. Her brain was lacking air and was starting to shut down. She was dying. Tears were freely running down her cheeks now. She didn't want to die!

It was then that she was turned on her back and was surprised to see the familiar face of the Prothean Commander. He was speaking to somebody near him when suddenly he grabbed her face, and the pain was gone and she was transported to a green field filled with flowers everywhere and a blue sky above her. Behind her she heard children playing, but nothing mattered because she saw her mother in front of her smiling and arms opened wide in a welcoming gesture. She stood, no longer worried about her missing body parts and ran into her mother's arms.

* * *

Javik looked down at the frightened woman that he had touched. Liara T'soni was close to death. So he gave her an image that would be the last one she'd see in this life. Touching her, he had felt the surge of her memories and saw the image of her mother and her in a park with children all around them playing, all the while little Liara was trying to dig up the soil for treasures unknown. So using this image he brought up a fake memory in her mind, manipulated it and allowed her peace as he felt her life essence vanish.

Turning his head her saw Ann sigh. "What'd you do?"

"Placed her mind somewhere else so she was no longer in pain." He stood looking around he saw a piece of roofing and watched Grim pick it up and place it over the dead asari woman.

Grim looked down at his work. "Can't burn her 'cause she's not krogan, but we can cover her so those husks don't get a hold of her."

"Thanks Grim." Ann nodded at the older krogan, who nodded back at her. Turning towards Javik, she watched him look down at his hand before he reached back and grabbed his Prothean canon rifle. "Ready?" she asked. He looked at her and gave a single nod. With that they continued their way through the rubble that once was Vancouver.

* * *

Garrus sniped off another head of a husk from the sniper's position he'd taken upon the roof, while Jack and Grunt were having a party in the streets below. The angry biotic was stronger than their Jack had been. Just as angry, but stronger in her attacks and was a bit of sadistic killer too. She liked to tear the body parts off of her victims and then beat them with their own arms and legs until they were a bloody pulp, and then she'd finally just blow the head off with her pistol. It was messy, gruesome, and entertaining all at the same time. Grunt still had only one way to killing. Charge it with his shotgun and then if his victim was still alive, tear it apart piece by piece. Even if his was the faster way, it was still quite gruesome. The two brood warriors had vanished some time ago into an apartment complex and his group was currently waiting for them to come back out.

Zooming in on the advancing enemy with his eye piece, he sniped a few more human and asari husks, when he felt a soft gentle nudge in the back of his mind and heard a soft song begin to play. Seconds later he saw the two brood warriors exit the building by jumping off of the roof and landing near his position with three children on each of their backs. "Tiny singers were singing fearsome songs," explained the one. "We heard their songs. They needed our help."

Garrus nodded as he looked the six children over and noticed that one girl was an asari and one of the boys was a drell child. "Okay. We've gone through most of this sector. Let's turn back and head towards Ann." Touching his headset he brought up both Jack's and Grunt's comms. "Pull back you two. We're heading back towards Ann."

"Fuck!" Jack cursed as her pistols ran out of ammo. "Let's got birdie," she replied as she took off in a dead run, with a lumbering krogan running behind her.

"This is Joker to Garrus, do you read?" came Joker's voice over the comms.

"Loud and clear Joker," he answered as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. He turned just in time to watch the two rachni carrying the kids jump onto the streets.

"Great, John wants me to tell you that he got to London HQ, only to find it blown to hell. Also, I've been getting a signal from our aussie friends in the south from a marine named Jonah, who says they've got a bunch biotic kids and a very pregnant field medic down there; if you catch my drift."

Garrus gwaffed at this information and as his laughter died down he finally replied. "Then go get Serena and the children."

"Already told my other self this and he about yelled my ears off," Joker replied with a smile as he looked over at Angie who was smiling right back at him. "I'm starting to think that girl has more life lines than a cat."

Garrus frowned as he rounded a corner with the brood warriors behind him, who had dozens of husks behind them. "Yeah, I don't know what you mean on that one," he replied. "Jack!" he called ahead, causing the biotic to look behind her. "Shockwave those bastards behind us!"

A maniacal look appeared in her eyes. "No problem birdie," she replied as she jumped up to a fire escape on a building nearby and began to give off a series of shockwaves that tore through the husks defenses. Not paying attention she didn't see the marauder sneak up behind her until it grabbed her and began to tear at her body. Grunt roared with anger as he climbed up to where Jack was and plowed right into the marauder, who still had Jack in its arms. The added weight on the fire escape caused the metal to buckle and the three began to fall to the ground. Just before impact, Grunt grabbed Jack and tucked his body around hers and took the blow to the back, while the marauder landed with a sickening crunch as a piece a metal went straight through its brain.

Jack staggered to her feet and pulled out some medi-gel and slapped some onto a wound she'd just gotten and looked over at Grunt who shook the dust off of his armored body. "That was fun. Let's do it again." He smiled when Jack began to laugh.

"You're a touch son of a bitch." She laughed. "I like mother fuckers like you."

Grunt snorted. "You're not my type human." He grunted as he lumbered off towards Garrus who looked at him and Jack with a typical look of amusement.

As they rounded another corner they found it was blocked, only to see that the store side had been blown out. "Who wants to guess that Ann's been through here?" Garrus joked.

"I heard that!" came Ann's voice over the comm.

While the other two jumped at the commander's voice suddenly appearing out of nowhere, Garrus was use to it and smiled. "Don't deny it. You like blowing shit up," he commented back to her as his team went through the store and to the other side where they found a downed Reaper ship. "Really Ann, you blew a Reaper up without me around?" he moaned.

He heard her giggle. "Couldn't help it. It was in my way." She laughed. "And yes, I like to blow shit up. Just ask Massani."

"Zaeed Massani?" Jack asked. "Fuck, that bastard owes me creds."

Ann laughed. "Same here."

Suddenly the comm pinged, meaning somebody else had come into the conversation. "One, I owe nobody," came a gruff voice. "Two, hell yea, it's fun to blow shit up."

"Zaeed, where are you?" Ann asked as she spotted Garrus and his group coming towards her from beyond the downed Reaper ship.

"In orbit on the Moriza." He smiled as he sat in his captain chair, enjoying the feeling the leather seats were giving him. "I've been here the entire time helpin' yer sorry asses."

"Good to know." Ann said closing the conversation as Garrus touched her hip very gently nipping her ear lobe. "Miss me?" she asked

"Mmmm…" was his reply. "I always miss you when I'm not on your team."

"Ugh! Get a room!" Jack yelled at them as she walked past them towards the encampment. When suddenly something fell from the sky and flashed above the Vancouver HQ camp. The flash exploded into a white light that began to encompass the entire area. "Run!" Jack yelled as everybody began to run back where they came from. Building began to explode around them as each person ran as fast as they could to out run the shockwave from whatever bomb had been dropped. Jack suddenly felt her foot get caught by something and fell face first into the ground. Pulling her biotics around herself into a heavy shield she thought that maybe she'd survive, but was so wrong as she screamed as she felt her skin being burned from her body, her insides liquefied almost instantly and her brain boiled. Before her body even hit the ground it was turned to dust.

* * *

Jeff brought the SR-3 to rest in the harbor landing pads outside of Sydney, Australia. Admiral Anderson had talked to the leadership here to have the biotic children from Gissom here at the port and to make sure that Serena Lavargus accompany them. So as soon as they landed, he was quite surprised to find the docks empty. Kal'Reeger and Tali'Zorah were both waiting for the group to appear when suddenly they saw a multitude of people headed their way in a dead run, a mako ahead of the crowd rushing down the docks towards the Normandy. When it came to a sudden stop inches away from the two quarians, the doors, both side and back opened and a dozen children came running out of it, along with them was a very pregnant Serena who was being helped by a marine who was helping her to get to the Normandy. "We need to go!" he yelled. "They're indoctrinated!" he said this pointing toward the crowd of people that were headed their way.

Kal and Tali began to immediately get the people inside of the airlock and as soon as the last person was in. They closed the airlocks behind them. "Jeff, you bosh'tet, get us out of here, we've got 'em!" Tali yelled through the comm.

Jeff activated the thrusters without waiting for the locks to pull away completely which busted the locking mechanisms and flew the ship out of hostile territory. As he put the Normandy into a stealth mode the airlocks finally opened and revealed a dozen biotic children. The eldest, a boy with black hair and green eyes saluted Anderson as soon as the boy saw him, the rest following suit. "At ease." Anderson waved the salutes away. "Get yourselves down to med-bay asap." The boy nodded as they made their way out of the airlock and down to the elevator that would get them down to med-bay. The marine, carrying Serena, who had a bloody wound on her head and was limping, walked out last. Jeff looked at his girlfriend, his eyes wide. He looked over towards Anderson who looked at the pilot and gave him a nod. "I'm sure EDI can take care of the ship for now."

The AI's holo appeared in the pilot's seat as soon as Jeff had stood up to leave. Jeff raised an eyebrow at EDI, who smiled. "I've got this," She stated as her see-through hands went across the controls expertly.

Jeff and Anderson followed the group downstairs with Kal and Tali behind them. Once in the large med-bay they found Chakwas already taking care of Serena's wounds and asking how this had occurred. It was the marine Jonah that answered. "We had been fighting the bastards for months now. Serena has been helping us tend out the wounded ever since she and the kids dropped from the sky. After the Shepard's had done that worldwide and fleet wide announcement the captains and lieutenants and civilians in the bunkers started acting….weird." he paused and looked at Anderson. "I made the call to bring the biotic kids back to protect the bunkers." The guy in charge, Captain Daniels, he attacked me. Serena, she shot him, but only in the shoulder. It was then that his glasses fell from his face and revealed heavily implanted facial features around his eyes….like a husk, but not a husk."

"Cerberus?" Anderson asked Chakwas, who nodded.

"After that the entire bunker went crazy," Jonah continued. "I sent out that S.O.S. and got in contact with Joker from the SR-2. He then told me that help was on the way and to get to the LZ at the docks asap." He sat down on one of the beds. "So she and I fought through the hordes of people to get out of the bunker. By the time we got to the entrance of the bunker the kids had gotten there, only they were fighting off the CO's and civilians that were going crazy outside." He paused and looked at Serena who was now hooked up to a monitor that was checking her and the baby's heartbeats. "She was the one that saw the Mako and well, I yelled for the kids to get inside and them once everybody was inside we slammed on the gas. I ran over a lot of people to get us out of there. Once out, we made a beeline for the docks."

Anderson nodded. "And before this, was there any indication that your CO's were indoctrinated?"

"No sir," Jonah replied with a shake of his head. "They acted normal."

Jeff walked over to Serena and looked at Chakwas. "Well?" he asked

"Everything seems normal, but I'd suggest that you get rest my dear. Your blood pressure is too high for my liking. This could cause you to go into labor early. You still have a month to go."

Serena nodded. "I'm exhausted." She sighed as she took Jeff's hand into her own.

"You look it," he joked with a wink. She gave a weak laugh as Chakwas suddenly injected her with something that made her very drowsy. She gave a small moan before snuggling into the pillow behind her head. ' _A nap sounds good,'_ Jeff thought as he watched Serena fall into la la land.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> M-Angel: I killed Jack! *sniffle* That was the hardest thing to do. It was her or Grunt, but I can't lose my baby krogan!
> 
> xoxoangii: Ugh this was a hard read! My heart broke with Liara.. then it broke again with Jack!
> 
> M-Angel: On the plus side, that chapter was really long. 3,000+ words. I was surprised by how many words it was. I was like, holy crap! LoL!
> 
> xoxoangii:But it was so good! So much action, and so much heartbreak /3 lol
> 
> M-Angel: Well, there's only one chapter left to this story. Hope everybody is ready for it. There's going to be more death to it. Also, voting is over for my poll.


	25. Chapter 25: Final Battles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Because of the graphic gore and character death in this chapter please be forewarned.

**Chapter 25** : _Final Battles_

* * *

**Location** : _Unknown_

Darkness gave way to a bright room. Looking around said room Serena saw a very large white canopy bed, in the center of the bed laid what looked to be a Prothean. The being sat up and swung its legs around to the edge of the bed and walked over to Serena. "I told you to wish for me to leave this place," it said. Its voice was very familiar and very feminine.

"Serene La'arges?" Serena asked after a moment. The Prothean nodded its head before smiling at the pregnant human.

"It would seem lots of things have happened since the last time we spoke." She said this while pointing to Serena's obvious pregnancy. "I may not be able to see the things that are occurring outside of this realm, but I can sense that a lot of bad things are happening."

"The Reapers are attacking, though in some area's we seem to be able to push them away while others we're being overwhelmed." Serena sighed as she rubbed her swollen stomach, more out of habit than anything else.

The ancient Prothean nodded. "The crucible and catalyst, have they been put together yet?" she asked looking worried. "If they are not built then…."

"The Crucible is in orbit around Earth, we built it." Serena scratched her neck. "I have no idea what the catalyst is, but I'm sure Javik told Ann and John what that is."

"Javik?" Serene inquired, her head tipping to the side as a smile displayed itself on her lips. "Commander Javik of the Empire?" Serena nodded. "He survived Eden Prime from my time?" Her eyes widened. "He was rumored to be the strongest male of my time. Ill tempered, strong, fast in his killings, and was a possible candidate to being the one an ancient prophesy was talking about."

"With a wish, salvation will be granted. With bravery, the war will be won. With power, the enemy will run. With courage, hero's will fight together. With vengeance, a people will be remembered. With the past, the future will be cleared so that others will no longer suffer." Serena repeated what Javik had said many months before.

"Yes," Serene said with a nod.

"Javik says it applies to more than one person," Serena said as the ancient sat back down on the single piece of furniture in the room.

"No, he is wrong." She sighed. "It's a destiny for only one person, however I do not know who that person is."

"Well I'm the only one who can wish for something and it happens." Serena walked over to the bed and sat down next to Serene, her legs aching.

"Are you?" she asked as she looked at Serena and for the first time Serena wondered if she truly was the only one who had this gift.

* * *

**Date** : _June 3, 2184_

**Location** : _SR-3 Normandy_

Serena's eyes fluttered open and grimaced as the light flooded her senses and quickly closed her eyes. Turning her head she reopened them and spotted Jeff's baseball capped head on her bed, while he was hunched over. _'That can't be comfortable,'_ She thought. ' _He's going to hurt himself in that position. Idiot.'_ Sighing Serena closed her eyes. ' _Okay universe, if you fuck with me on this wish I am never doing it again. I wish for the Prothean Serene La'arges to be free of the_ **In Between** _and come and help us destroy the fucking Reapers once and for all.'_ She thought this and very gently shook Jeff to wake him up. This gentle shake caused him to bolt upright instantly.

"Wha-" he began as he spotted her trying not to giggle. "Serena." He sighed. "Okay, it's official, you are **_never_** leaving this ship without me! I don't care if the Commander thinks that, that is insubornation; but I can't go through **_that_** again!"

"Okay." Serena spoke so softly he almost didn't hear her as he continued.

"And another thing-" he paused. "Wait, you said okay?" he asked as he looked at her, upon seeing her nod he gave a sigh. "Good, cause…uh…I really can't take the stress anymore."

Serena took his hand into hers. The two shared a quiet moment together when Serena heard somebody enter the room. Upon looking up, Jeff turned his head to see who was approaching them; only to see Admiral Anderson. "How are you feeling Miss Lavargus?" he asked with sincerity.

"Rested," was her reply as she relaxed against the pillows.

"Good," He said as he handed her a box. "You'll probably receive more once we're done and the Reapers are destroyed, but this one is a thank-you for saving those kids' lives. Within out them, we'd be screwed."

Serena opened the box and gasped at the sight of a military medal award. She heard Jeff whistle at the sight. "That's the Alliance Defense Distinguished Service Medal," he told her. "It's usually only given to an exceptionally distinguished officer for his or her services in saving one or more lives."

"Thank-you sir," she said as she gave Anderson a salute. The man nodded as he left the couple be.

* * *

**Location** : _London, England_

John pulled himself up against a large piece of debris. Looking across from him, he saw the rest of his team. Everybody was exhausted. The drell, Kolyat, as it turned out, was a powerful biotic, at least an L4 material. The young male was also very quiet on his feet and was a stealthy ally. The drell, with Mel and Ian both took to the roof tops. The rachni broodwarrior and Wrex stayed with him. Aberdeen had vanished, staying silent as he followed behind. Everybody was hurting and tired. They were out of medi-gel, though Wrex was the only one who didn't need it. They'd come in contact with one of the bunker groups, but they'd been told to move forward because of a rumor of another attack run by the Reaper's air forces.

Being so drained of energy, John was now too tired. Just then they heard a gunshot. "Commander…" Ian's voice came over the comms. "We've got a survivor up in the Old Ben clocktower."

"Any contact from him?" John asked, slightly out of breath. Wrex looked over at the Commander giving him the _you okay_ look. John gave him a nod.

"Negative."

"Try, we're on our way." With that said, John and his men made a mad dash to Ian's position. Anything in their way ended up dead as bullets flew through the air, along with Aberdeen and Wrex's biotics.

Suddenly, a group of Banshees screamed as their heads exploded. "That's one step me, an' no wins for them," came a filtered voice as they rounded the corner that lead towards the clocktower. Looking down John saw a volus looking up at him. This volus seemed…tiny, next to the ones he'd seen. "Saw one thing about my size and you'll be goo too," it said

"I like this guy," Wrex commented as he grabbed the volus by the head and picked him up. "Name?" he growled

"Thel," He said

"Full name," Wrex grunted as he shook the tiny being.

"No clan name. I'm clanless," he said, waving his arms around trying to get the obvious trigger happy krogan off his back and let him go.

"Biotic volus are as rare as a singing elcor," Aberdeen said as he jumped out of his hiding place next to the group. "Clanless ones are even more so."

"Why?" John asked, obvious not sure what this meant.

"Because that means we have no trade uses!" Thel yelled. "Just drop me!"

"You're choice" Wrex said, letting the volus go, only the creature didn't fall, instead his feet burst with a blue light and he was floating. "Boosters," Wrex muttered, obviously not amused.

"Want to join us?" John asked, causing Aberdeen and Wrex to glare at him. "What? He's clanless, we're biotic freaks with a rachni broodwarrior as an ally."

"Yet we are a bit weird." Aberdeen sighed as he looked at the still floating volus.

"On one condition." The little being bartered. "I get a clan name after this."

"Can't be Urdnot," Wrex growled. "That's taken." The krogan walked away as he saw a flash from a gun from the clocktower. "Looks like that guy is still up in the tower."

"You mean Lieutenant Coats?" Thel asked as he turned towards the krogan. "He's just target practicing." Wrex gave John a crooked smile, causing John to laugh.

"You've got a deal, if you can get us a comm. link with coats," John bargained.

The volus gasped. "That's it!?" he asked. "Yo, Coats," he yelled into his omni-tool comm. link.

"What!" came his reply.

"Come down from there, there's somebody down here who wants to chat," Thel said.

"Who?" came the reply followed by another gunshot.

"Commander John Shepard of the Alliance and a Spectre," John spoke into the omni-tool.

There was silence. "Be to your position in ten," Coats replied followed by another gunshot.

"John," Ian said over the comm. "We've found the main bunker base. Sending you the coordinates."

"Thanks, we'll be there in another twenty. We found the survivor and a biotic volus."

"Did you say-" Ian began but was cut off by Mel's voice.

"Thel?" the female turian asked.

"Melanis, thought you bit the dust on Omega when Cerberus took over," he yelled through the commander's omni-tool.

"You owe me credits!" she yelled.

If a volus could sweat Thel looked like he was. "Hehe…forgot about that," he replied nervously.

John looked up as he saw a man approaching them. A sniper rifle in one hand, on both hips were pistols, two daggers hanging on his left arm and his right arm was in a sling. "Lieutenant Coats," John greeted.

"Commander." He saluted, but John waved it away. "What's the damage and how many survivors do we have in the area?"

Coats sighed sadly. "I'm sadly the highest ranking official." He wipped his brow as they began to camp. "We did have a salarian, but he got killed. Next we had a turian, former General Spartacus and asari merc as our two leaders, both died yesterday during the bombing of the main camp. Now I'm in charge." He pushed a large piece of debris, that was being used as a block over a tunnel and the group entered the tunnel. "As for damage, eighty percent of the city is gone, food is almost non-existent and medical supplies are completely gone. We've been running on makeshift bandages and field medic surgeons are our only doctors."

"How do you do surgeries without-" Aberdeen began but was cut off by Coats.

"We have a krogan hold the patient down and the docs do their stuff," Coats replied with a grimace.

"Survivors consist mostly of women and children, most of the women are pregnant or injured in some way and are solely human. The children, most are uninjured and are a mix of species, including turian and quarian pilgrims." He shook his head as they came to an opening and John and his group got their first real look at humanities best bet at winning this war.

The people were indeed mostly pregnant human females, though there was an asari or turian here and there. They were in makeshift tents made out of metal or linens. There were children, who were mostly hiding from being seen by anybody. "My god," John breathed.

"Yeah," Coats agreed. "We're the survivors of London and we need evac ASAP sir." He said to John who looked at the man with a nod. "I'll see about doing that." He brought up his omni-tool and activated the comm. "Joker, is there a way you could bring in an evac in the area I'm currently in?"

There was silence followed by a curse. "Sure, if you want me to destroy the Normandy's bottom," the pilot said sarcastically.

"Good, make it happen." John smiled as he heard a sputter.

"Commander!" he yelled. "It's not that I'm glad you think I could do it, it's the fact that it's impossible. The area you're at is under buildings and those buildings are very closed in together and it's impossible for this ship to get into those tight spaces!"

"The Moriza can!" came Angie's voice. "Zaeed Massani has a cargo ship that's armed to the tooth. He can get in there and get you and the survivors sir!"

"Just the survivors," John said. "Tell Massani that if he does this I'll personally ensure all his records mysteriously vanish."

"Yes sir!" Angie replied as she turned to get the merc boss on a comm. link.

* * *

**Location** : Vancouver

Ash and dust had settled since the bomb went off a day and half ago. Reaper forces had all vanished from the area. No life signs were detected by the Reaper scans, but they'd be sorry for thinking they'd killed one of the Shepards as a hand shot out of a hole in the ground. The once pristine armor with the N7 logo on it laughed at anybody who thought its owner had been killed. Ann Shepard lifted her visor towards the ruined city. Next to her, her turian husband climbed out of the tunnel, bending down he picked up the two alien children and sat them down on the ash covered ground. The two brood warriors had thrown themselves over the children inside of the tunnel, both had been killed by the sheer heat from the bomb. He'd thrown himself onto Ann, powering his shields to full blast. Grunt was recovering, but Jack had been lost. The last person to pull himself out of the hole was Javik.

The Prothean looked around himself. "This is the end result of a Plasmite bomb," he said. "It's a bomb my people created."

"Plasmite?" Ann asked

"It was nicknamed The Cleanse for reason," he stated as he took a step, which was followed by a crunch. Looking down he picked up a piece of glass. "It turned the ground to glass and destroyed any buildings by turning them into ash. Any organic material that'd come into contact with this would also turn to ash."

"Right, so nobody could survive this?" she asked

"Ninety-nine percent of the time," he said as he looked at his hands. "We just happen to be a part of the one percent that did survive it."

Suddenly, a flash of light exploded throughout the area. The group covered their eyes, and when the flash vanished a shadow of a person appeared in the distance. Ann raised an eyebrow as the being began to walk towards them. The group pulled their weapons out and held them up. "Freeze!" Ann yelled. "Identify yourself!"

The figure could be recognized as it came to a stop about six feet from the group as a Prothean. Javik's scent glands suddenly told him what that person was. "It's a female Prothean," he said in awe.

The being suddenly spoke. "Za norm vock, ki'leam."

Javik lowered his weapon causing Ann to look at him. "Javik?" she asked

"She speaks high-tongue Prothean, she comes from a wealthy family," he sneered. "These were the first to run and hide when the Reapers came." His gun lifted again. "Shav, hol'ak na'v." he replied

"Serene La'arges," she replied. "Ya' var Javik."

Javik froze. "Okay, I don't speak Prothean, but I recognized two names there," Garrus said as he looked between the two Protheans. "Javik, who is she?"

"Lady Serene La'arges," he said, "She was the daughter of the man who claimed to be able to open the portal to the _In Between_. She vanished before the Reapers came. Her father was killed before he could prove that the **In Between** even existed. It was later found to be real by our scientists, but it was too late to find out how to open it."

"It's a place between realities, right?" Ann asked knowing full well that Serena had claimed to have been there.

"Yes," the female answered, she had an accent that sounded as if she came from Russia. "I believe my copy from another reality had been there before. I believe she's called Serena and is mated with a man named Jeff."

"You sure know a lot," Ann said as she lowered her gun. "You're not indoctrinated, and yet you survived the blast. How?"

"I was not here until a few seconds ago," she explained. "I've been stuck in that place for fifty thousand years. Serena wished me to be released and I am forever thankful to her. However now, we need to find a place where we can talk. I have to know if you've built the Catalyst or not."

Ann chuckled. "The catalyst doesn't need to be built. It's the Citadel."

This caused the female Prothean to go silent for a moment. "Then we must connect both the Catalyst and the Crucible as soon as possible."

"What will this do?" Ann asked as she opened a comm. link and called for an evac.

"It will create an option," she said, "I only know this because even though I couldn't enter any other reality to escape to it, I could look into one and see how to destroy the Reapers. In one I saw a human Commander female named Jane Shepard destroy the Reapers by using the Crucible and Catalyst. This opened a new section on the station she was on. I should've known it was the Citadel. She was badly injured and was waning in and out of consciousness. She found the being controlling the Reapers, an AI that had taken the shape of a human boy to gain her trust. It gave her options. None of which were very good and all of which ended in her death." She paused as she saw the shuttle coming to pick them up. "That was when four new realities began to merge. In one she used a destroy option which would destroy all synthetic lifeforms, including Geth and an AI name EDI. In the second she used control and took control of the reapers by merging her mind and becoming the new boss and destroying the old one. She'd be forever trapped on the citadel as its sole AI, but she did force the reapers to fly into a black hole and self terminate. The third she created a new DNA by synthesis. This combined both synthetic and organic parts together as one." She shook her head. "The fourth one, she found a large computer system that was where the boss AI was installed into and found its memory crystal. She removed it and destroyed it. She then, with geth tech that was installed into her omni-tool uploaded a virus into the system. This virus spread from reaper to reaper and set of a self destruct sequence. Each reaper throughout the galaxy were destroyed and then the station she was all engulf into a bright light as it too exploded." She sighed once again as the shuttle landed and walked to it.

Once settled she continued. "I have a theory." Ann looked at her. "No matter what, Jane Shepard always died. It is probably a destiny for all Shepards who try to stop the Reapers, all but one. You." She pointed at Ann. "I don't know how, but you survived. You broke the chain and perhaps that is what is going to save this reality. You have something that'll save the billions of lives in this reality. It may be John's destiny to die, but perhaps you can change that."

"How?" Garrus asked hoping that this wasn't going where he feared it was.

"Perhaps in order to save one Shepard, the one who survived must be forced to ensure the other survives too." She leaned back, her head suddenly hurting. "I do not know how, but I believe in you Commander. I believe you are this times Javik. He may have failed in stopping them for our people, but you two are so alike it's not funny."

Javik snorted. "We are nothing alike." He crossed his arms over his chest as the shuttle came to a stop as they pulled into the shuttle bay area of the SR-3 Normandy.

The female stepped in front of him. "da," she said as she walked out of the shuttle with everybody, including the children looking at Javik who had a sneer on his face now and stormed out after the female.

* * *

Kolyat watched as the Moriza took off with the survivors to get them to safety. More than likely it would dock with a Geth ship that'd been converted into a survivor ship that was safely outside the system. Praying to his people's gods, he prayed for them to make it to their destination before turning back to the camp that was slowly being made into a military base of operation. He watched Commander John Shepard embrace a female that looked eerily like himself, except she had horrendous facial scars. Near her were several other people, including three quarians, and a turian. He was about to approach when his eyes picked up movement to his side. Turning his head he felt himself sigh in relief. His father was standing next to him. "I am so glad to see you're alive son." Kolyat looked up at the elder Krios and bowed his head in respect to his father.

"As am I, father," he replied, when he felt a hand on his shoulder he lifted his head to look at his father, Thane Krios.

The once assassin looked his son over and thanked every deity that his son had survived this far. He had been worried for months after not hearing from him that the worst had occurred, only to just now find Kolyat helping survivors get off this planet. He could describe the feeling of pride when he'd seen his son helping the women and children onto that ship. "The training I put you through helped?" he asked

Kolyat smiled. After his mother had died from a murderous death, his father had taken him from Kenji, deeming it too dangerous. His father never shared what his mothers last words had been, but a good guess would have been that she asked him to protect their son. Protect was putting it mildly. Thane had spent a better part of a decade ensuring that his son not only survived in this universe, but that he'd thrive in any environment that he'd come in contact. From being stranded on a planet, to out smarting a Thresher Maw, to blending into the background and watching how people interacted in order to survive in that town or city he'd be staying in. "Yes father," he said as the two drell men looked at the camp in silence. "Do you think we'll survive father?" he asked as he heard an explosion in the background and looked at the beam of light upon the horizon.

"Our people have survived many things, including the loss of our own homeworld," Thane began. "The drell people will survive, but if you're not asking about our people, but the galaxy as a single, I do not know son. There are too many variables to consider, but these humans are the most adaptable of any species I've encountered. They survive when no one should. They may be the youngest in our galaxy, but it may be them that out live us all."

Kolyat turned from his father and looked back at the groups of marines, krogan, asari, and every other species that were gathering at this point. "I think you might be right." he finally said after several minutes of quiet between them. He then looked at his father. "I want you to meet somebody. I think he might be the one that'll make a difference in whether or not we all live." As he said this he began the long trek down the hill and back into the encampment, Thane following his son the whole way.

* * *

**Date** : _June 12, 2184_

Rodriguez yawned as she and her group continued to follow the Lieutenant Coats deeper into enemy territory. No one had yet to see any husks, marauders, or banshees, but they could hear their screams up ahead. Two days ago they'd gotten a signal from an orphanage school in this sector. The caller had said there were at least fifty survivors there. After talking to the higher ups at base camp, including Hackett himself, Coats had been told to take the biotic kids and get those orphans.

They came within a half a click away from the destination when they heard banshee screams coming from behind them. The entire group turned in time to see a dragon-like creature flying towards them. Riding upon it's back were a dozen banshees who gave a screech as the beast came flying at the group.

"Get to the orphanage on the double!" Coats yelled at them.

The group ran as fast as they could. Rodriguez watched as one of the younger children fell behind and watched as the orphanage doors closed as the dragon breathed fire that engulfed the young biotic girl. Her screams only lasted a half of a second as the dragon's mouth suddenly engulfed the burning girl and swallowed her whole, thus silencing her cries forever.

Coats looked at the now frightened biotic kids. "Easy kids," he said trying to calm them. "There's nothing we can do for her now," he said as he pulled his M-96 Mattock assault rifle off his back and began down the first hall of the two story building. It was as they came into the first story cafeteria that they came to a stop. The benches had all been thrown against the door opposite of the one they come through and in the center of the room were dozens of dragons teeth spikes.

"Shit," Rodriguez heard one of the boys say. It was then she felt a hand grab hers and saw the boy, David, grab it. He was older than she was but was mentally only twelve. He was really good with numbers and throwing things with his mind.

"It's okay," she whispered to him, causing him to nod before letting go of her hand.

"Rodriguez!" Coats called to her. "Take four and go left, the rest come with me. We meet back here in twenty."

"Yes sir!" she yelled as she grabbed David, Harley, Tommy, and Lil and headed off on their assignment.

The first floor seemed quiet and there was nobody anywhere on this floor. They opened doors and even turned tables in the rooms, but found nothing. "This is supposed to be an orphanage, right?" Lil asked, her red hair bobbing up and down as they walked through the halls, her freckled face showed no worry or fear, only excitement.

"Yeah," David said as he counted silently for each step he took, nobody understood why he counted his steps, but he did.

Tommy nodded. "Yeah, it's a school like ours, but for normal's."

"That's not what I meant," Lil said as she came to a stop. "Where are the beds, their clothes and things?"

Rodriguez paused in her steps. "Maybe upstairs?" she answered giving her group a questioning look.

They found the elevator to go upstairs and as it opened the two girls suddenly felt bile come up. The elevator was full of dead, mutilated bodies. Red and blackish grey blood was everywhere, from the ceiling to the floor. One body was that of a child holding her stuffed bear in her arms. Her mouth was open in a scream that'd been silenced as her throat had been sliced by a blade. Small body parts of other children filled the elevator as well. Just then some brain matter fell from the ceiling and landed on the floor.

"Who wants to take the stairs?" Tommy asked feeling like his stomach was about to lose itself.

"Agreed," David stated, his face paler than it usually was.

Just as the group went to turn for the stairs, they heard a groaning sound from the elevator. Slowly turning, they saw a hand drop to the floor and fist up and pull the rest of itself around the corner. The hand was followed by a body of a woman, not a child. As the head turned towards the group of children they saw rotting flesh covering the woman's face and glowing eyes staring back at them. The woman or husk pulled itself away from the elevator, revealing that this husk only had half its body.

Tommy approached the zombie-like husk and clapped his hands together, creating a shockwave. The force of the energy behind the shockwave tore the husk's body apart. "That was easy," He said noticing that it hadn't taken much to kill that husk.

"Tommy!" Lil screamed causing Tommy to turn, his eyes glowing wide just as his head was blasted from his shoulders. A large shotgun wielding marauder stepped out from the elevator shaft and into the hall where the biotic kids were just as Tommy's body fell to the ground.

"RUN!" Rodriguez yelled as they took for the stairs. They all heard the creature roar as it took chase. Their feet pounded the tile flooring of the upstairs, and as they rounded the hall that would take them to the roof they came to a stop. Blood and bodies laid everywhere and the M-96 Mattock assault rifle that belonged to Lieutenant Coats laid at the sides of a torn to pieces body. Grabbing the gun and any mags that were on the floor, Rodriguez turned towards the stairs to go the roof. "Go!" she yelled, "I'll cover you!"

"What about the dragon!" Lil yelled obviously not forgetting that creature.

Suddenly Rodriguez looked back down the hall and saw the marauder waiting for her to make a move. "I shoot, Lil shields and David," the boy stopped counting for a moment and looked at her. "Throw that thing every time it gets too close, hell throw that thing's gun out of its hands." She whispered, hoping he could understand her.

It was as if a silent bell dinged and the creature came at full speed towards the group of kids. Rodriguez began shooting the thing while Lil put a shield around them. Just as the creature was about three feet from the group it went flying fifteen feet back. David rubbed his head in pain. The creature had lost its grip on the weapon and got up to charge them again.

"Shockwave everybody!" Rodriguez yelled. The hands on the kids glowed a brilliant blue, and as they clapped their hands together they released an enormous amount of energy that tore the beasts body apart. Muscle, bones, brain matter, armor, and blood splattered everywhere, including on the kids themselves.

Just as they were about to cheer over this victory out of the corner of her eye Lil saw something bright and red coming at them at an incredible speed and turned in time to see the dragon breathing fire at them. "DUCK!" she screamed.

David, however, didn't react in time. As a result of the blast, glass from the hall window was sent into his body. As he screamed in pain from the glass embedding itself into his skin, he got hit by the fireball that the dragon creature had blown his way and was knocked through a wall and down the one story building. He may have survived if he'd known how to land properly. But because he didn't, he landed on his back, breaking bones in his spine and neck.

The two girls peek down to see if he was getting up, only to get a glance of a banshee approaching him and throwing his body at the harvester, who ate the young boy as it caught him mid-air.

This time Lil did throw upon the floor. The day's events were just too horrible for her young mind. Rodriguez felt her limbs tremble. How were they going to survive? She looked down at her omni-tool and saw that they had to get back to the cafeteria even though she knew Coats wasn't going to be there. She looked back at the body on the floor in the hall and swallowed hard.

"Let's go." She whispered to Lil who was starting to panic.

The two girls made their way back downstairs. As they were about to walk away from the stairway, Rodriguez heard something. Turning abruptly she saw a little girl standing there in a blood soaked nightgown, behind her was another child and another and another. As she counted she found at least a dozen surviving kids.

"Twelve?" she muttered followed by a curse.

Just then Lil cursed as she peered around the corner. The harvester and banshees were now inside the building and were looking for them. She looked at Rodriguez. "Take 'em back down," she said, "I'm going to divert their attention to me, it'll give you time to get them out of this hellhole."

"But-" Rodriguez was about to say when the little girl grabbed her hand.

"We both know there's no way we're going to get these kids outta here alive if one of us doesn't do something."

"What are you going to do?" she asked her red headed friend.

Lil threw a crazy look at Rodriguez. "Boom," she said as she took off in a dead run, her whole body glowing.

"Shit!" Rodriguez cursed as she realized her friend was going to take the creatures out with a Nova blast, but causing her biotics to go off and overload her implants. It would be painful for her, but in the end her body would explode as it released pent up energy from the overloaded biotic implants and eezo in her body overheating.

Pushing her emotions away, she grabbed the kids and got them to go back downstairs and shut the basement door just as she heard an explosion that shook the entire place to its core.

* * *

**Date** : _June 14, 2184_

Ann looked at John, who gave her a nod. "Okay, the Reapers aren't going to just forget we're here," she said as she looked out at the group they'd been able to pull together. "The reapers in space seem to be busy with the geth, rachni, and quarian fleets."

"The Primarch with the rest of his fleets are coming into the system," he got a look from the turians present. "Palaven is no longer under attack, neither is Thessia or Kenji or the other homeworlds."

"The Crucible is being brought in as well, which means that the fleets will be too busy up there to keep that safe from both reapers and any Cerberus ship in the system." She looked at Hackett who was on the ground, while Anderson was on a fleet ship. "The Normandy's will help when and if they can. I want to split up into teams. John and I both will team up as one, Garrus; I want you to team up with Ian, Melanis, and the Krios', come in through the beam from the west." Her husband gave a nod. "Wrex, I want you and the krogan to team up with the rachni and come in through the east." The krogan battlemaster gave a nod.

"What about us Shepard?" came Mordin's voice from behind her. The elder of the two gave a smile at his friend, next to him was her Jack that had been hiding in her hidey hole in the bottom of the Normandy for months and next to her were two asari; one was Samara, the other was this realities Liara's 'father', Aethyta. Both Matriarch women looked ready to fight.

"Mordin, you take your group and come in from the North," she looked at John. "You and I and the rest come from the south." She looked down at the holo map. "They can't hit us all at once, but they can pick us off one by one," she looked back up. "So be careful." Everybody gave her a curt nod. "Grab what you may need from the supplies, then come back and we'll begin. Everybody looked at each other, as if seeing who was stupid enough not to have already grabbed their supplies. Nobody left the group and looked at the Shepards and Hackett.

Ann looked at John who looked at the Admiral, who cleared his throat. "This is our final push," the older man said. "If we don't win this battle, here and now, then we may lose everything we know and love forever." He paused. "I'm not going to promise you and everybody you see here right now will make it back alive, but what I can promise is that if you fight with every ounce of your being, you just may make it to tomorrow."

* * *

Serena sat down next to Jeff and listened to Ann and Hackett's speeches. The two may not have been from the same reality, but both knew what was at stake here. Rubbing her very swollen stomach, she turned her chair so that she could help Jeff the best she could. He had showed her how to use the console months ago. So she knew how to activate the Normandy's weapon systems, plus EDI was at the console behind her and the AI would be able to help.

"EDI, did you back yourself up in that EMP protected AI shielding unit that the geth gave you?" Jeff asked as he made sure all systems were ready when they were given the signal to come out of stealth from the dark side of the moon.

"Yes Jeff, I have," she said as her new and geth improved body turned towards them. The body had a human skeleton, overlapped with synthetic muscles and skin, making her look human. She had chin length brown hair and an eye piece that went over the entire section of both eyes. "Thank-you for the concern." She smiled at both of them. "This body even has an off mode, which if I sense an EMP release I can shut down and activate an EMP shield on it in .00009 seconds."

"Great news," Jeff said with a nod. "Can't lose our best AI friend that we could ask for." He winked at her before turning back to his console.

EDI blinked at him and looked at Serena. "I still cannot tell if he's flirting or being friendly, as organics would say."

Serena laughed. "A bit of both," she said as she swatted at Jeff, who ducked away from her attack.

Suddenly the console began beeping. "Green light," Jeff said. "The turians and scientist are passing Mars, they'll be in position in fifteen." With that his fingers began running across the boards, Serena and EDI's were doing the same.

* * *

Zaeed Massani had been many things in his life, a bastard was one of them. When he'd been approached by one of the Shepard's months ago, just after the Citadel had been opened to dark space, he'd thought they'd been kidding about him using his resources to give them an edge. Hell, he'd been damn ready to pull his resources and hide until this blew over, but from the intel they'd given him, the intel the shadow broker had sent him about the reapers he had no damn way of surviving that flood.

So, giving resources, help, and weapons had been beneficial. Now he was catering his ship, the Moriza, back and forth from Earth to a stelthed geth and rachni hybrid ship that was hidden in the iced rings of Saturn on the dark side of Saturn near Titan. The rustic and yellow color of the moon hid the hybrid ship very well.

As he came into orbit to go to London again, he spotted a very large reaper ship heading directly towards the beam. "Shepard, you got a big assed damn ship heading directly towards the beam. It don't look good."

"Harbinger," was her only reply. "It's the damn general himself."

"Oh, so it's the damn big boy." Zaeed looked at his second, a young maiden asari who'd been a batarian slave before he'd bought her, handed her a gun and told her to shoot her old master. Since then, _Jenny_ , as he called her, had been by his side.

"Let's kill the bastard," he growled.

"Yes sir!" Jenny yelled as she began yelling orders to the people onboard.

It wasn't long before the reapers noticed where the Moriza was heading, and small occuli ships tried to stop them, only to get torn apart by the new rachni biotic canon. "Breach in engineering!" cried one of the co-pilots.

"I don't give a god-" Zaeed began, but an explosion that rocked his ship caused whatever else to come out of his mouth to muffled. "Ram it, if you have to!"

"We'll die!" Jenny cried out, fear in her eyes for the first time since the day she'd been bought by Massani.

"We'll be dead if we don't!" he yelled back. "That there beam is our only hope in getting onto that closed off Citadel. Now do it! Send everything we've got at that damn son of a bitch!"

* * *

**Location** : _The Beam_

Ann, John and their group ran fast to the beam. Killing and shooting the oncoming husks, banshees, marauders and diving out of the way as one reaper beam after another tried to behead them. When Massani's message had sounded in her helmet she thought she'd cursed, she may have even. Harbinger had it in for them, always had. The thought of not reaching the beam in time hit her like a sack full of bricks and forced her to run even faster, John never missing a beat.

It was just as they were about to make it to the beam that she saw Harbinger, the red beam from its canon about to let lose onto them, when suddenly she heard Massani singing the Alliance song of freedom that had been rumored to have been sung during the First Contact War, followed by a _fuck you,_ and suddenly Harbinger exploded as the Moriza and its crew destroyed the reaper by sacrificing their lives for others, and suddenly she was engulfed in a light and vanished from the ground.

* * *

**Location** : _Citadel / Unknown ward_

Ann gasped as the air in her lungs was being sucked out. The oxygen tube in her suit had burst. Ripping off her helmet, she gasped for air and suddenly hated herself for doing so. The stench of rotting corpses was too great. Getting to her feet she realized that the beam hadn't plopped her and her group in the same place, instead she was near some sort of vats and watched as the keeper began picking up the dead and dismembered bodies and dumped them into the protein vats. A sizzling sound filled the room. Turians went into a dark blue vat, quarians, a purple vat, asari a light blue vat, salarians and the rest were thrown in together in a green vat. She felt bile begin to build up in the back of her throat before swallowing it back down.

She pushed herself away from the door and found another one that went down a corridor. She activated her omni-tool and hit record. She didn't remember this place at all. Her armor's comm. activated. "An….there?" came John's voice.

"John?" she responded. "Where are you?"

"The…dumped…in a unknow...corridor," he said. "Where…you?"

"Same." She responded as she came to a large circular room, a holographic display of a red star was across the room's windows. It was in here she found John. "Nobody else made it?" she asked.

"Guess not." He said as he approached the console and began typing his spectre information into it. "Lucky me this still works," he said as he finished. Ann continued to record the entire room and it's dimensions. John brought up the display of the Crucible and smiled as the device was brought into the locking mechanisms. But nothing happened. Ann walked over, but saw nothing.

Then Hackett's voice came through the comm. system. "Shepard, the Crucible isn't firing! It's something on your end!"

"There's nothing here!" She sounded both panicked and exhausted.

John saw a button and pressed it. "Wha-" he began but was forced to shut up when a flash of light erupted and swallowed them both up.

It picked up speed, only to come to a stop a second later, causing them to stumble backward. Ann's hand shot out and grabbed a railing. When she was stable, she looked up, and covered her eyes against the bright light from...something. There was a bright flash, and as it faded, she carefully opened her eyes. She appeared to be outside, just below between the Citadel and the Crucible. She noticed something moving toward her, and as she registered it, her eyes widened.

"Who are you?" John asked the ghostly boy who stood before them.

"I am the Catalyst."

He took a step forward."I need to stop the Reapers. Do you know how I can do that?" he stated as yet another ship exploded above them.

But as the Catalyst continued, explaining his relationship to the Reapers and the order of the Galaxy, they both felt equal parts of outrage and confusion build within them.

"But we found a way to restore order for the next cycle." The boy turned and walked toward the center of the platform, which contained a beam reaching up toward the Crucible above.

"By wiping out organic life?" Ann answered, the anger clear in her voice. They continued toward the light, stopping only when they reached a three way part in the platform. Ann closed her eyes as the boy continued.

"We've created this cycle so that war between you and them never happens. That's the solution."

"But you're taking away our future," John stated softly."Without a future, we have no hope. Without hope," he growled, "we might as well be machines, programmed to do what we're told." The boy looked away after a moment.

"You have hope. More than you think. The fact that you are standing here, the first organic ever, proves it." Ann looked over her shoulder, as another ship exploded before returning her gaze to the boy."But it also proves that my solution won't work anymore."

"So now what?" Ann inquired.

"We find a new solution," the Catalyst stated simply.

"But how?" John could feel the dread doubling in the pit of his stomach.

"The Crucible changed me. Created new... possibilities. But I can't make them happen."

"What, exactly, are our options?" he asked slowly.

"I know you've thought about destroying us... All you'd have to do is blow it up." As he said this he pointed to a console bathed in a red light.

"What happens if we destroy it?" Ann whispered just lowly enough.

"You'd wipe out all synthetic life..."

"Including the Geth," she finished, her heart sinking for what felt like the millionth time as she remembered Legion's sacrifice.

"And most of the technology you rely on," he added, "Even you, Ann, are partly synthetic."

"But the Reapers will be destroyed?" she asked finally, after taking a moment to consider.

"Yes, but the peace won't last. Soon, your children will create synthetics and the chaos will come back."

"Whenever that is, that's our problem. You don't have the right to do this to us against our will," she stated furiously.

"Or do you think you can control us?" he asked as he pointed to a blue console."But it will kill you."

"But the Reapers would obey us? If we told them to fly straight into the center of the galaxy to be destroyed by the black holes, they would be forced to listen," John growled.

"Yes," the boy replied simply. "Or you could create a new DNA." He pointed to the center.

"Explain," he demanded.

"It would effectively make synthetics part organic and organics part synthetic," he explained.

"More or less like myself," Ann whispered.

"Yes," he answered.

_'It had all come down to this moment,'_ Shepard thought mildly. The small child holographic that was the Catalyst looked up at them, waiting for them to decide the fate of the galaxy. They had three apparent choices, control the reapers, combine organic and synthetic life, or kill the reapers and all technology associated with it. Looking out at the three walkways with their distinct glow of lights.

_'Something is wrong here,'_ she thought as John was about to walk forward she grabbed his shoulder."We choose none." Her voice was steady and cold fire danced in her eyes. John stared at her as if she'd grown a second head.

"You doom them all then, organics and synthetics can never be..." he began.

"That's bullshit and you know it!" she snarled."We've been chosen by our species to be the best, but while we may be the best, we are only human. The quarians and geth put aside their differences and now fight together, as one, against the Reapers. They have their best fighting you. We all have our best fighters fighting for our inalienable rights to live!" She pointed her finger at him. "You think you have all the answers, but you don't. Go ahead, kill us, but you'll be fighting every single man, woman and child. Human, turian, asari, salarian, or whatever. We will fight until our last breath is taken." She paused. "We've done the impossible, or what you say is impossible. We have the geth, a synthetic species, fighting with us and for once, they're not your slaves to control and that just pisses you off!" She smirked, her bloody face contorting into a victory smile.

"You do not understand," it said.

"No, you don't understand." She hobbled towards him. "Let me say it simply...Leave us the fuck alone!" She growled, knowing full well that Jack would've been smiling at that speech.

"Is...that...your choice?" it asked with uncertainty.

"Yes, we want you to leave and let us make our own choices. We don't need you to play big brother." She groaned as she suddenly felt weaker. "Let us make our own mistakes. Let us live the way we want to. You are not needed and never will be."

Suddenly the boy smiled and it's voice and body shifted into something that was easy to recognize. Synthetic eyes looked at her and that smile that she hated for that year she was forced to work for him. The Illusive Man, a.k.a. Jack Harper, stood in front of her. "Who the heck-" John began as he pulled his pistol up to shoot.

"Very good Shepard, but tell me: how did you know that I wouldn't kill you anyways for that speech of yours," Jack said, a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other as he the illusion of the room returned to that of the dark room with a single red star in the background.

"A hunch," she said her own weapon raised. "Now what?"

"Like all things in life, even experiments must come to an end." he said. "Yes I was created by the beings on Desponia, but after they started warring against one another, I decided to destroy my own creators. They saw what I was doing, but couldn't stop it. It began to be a game to me. Whoever could defeat me I let live, those who I saw a resistant, but weak I destroyed. Then your cycle came. I thought it would be like always, but something changed. Something I didn't see. Somehow, two realities blended. One came from where my kind was destroyed and at first I thought it was that Serena girl who had caused this, I even sent agents to kill her; but I was wrong." He looked at Ann. "You are the reason the game changed." He looked at John. "Without her, you would've taken my deal. Probably thought to destroy us, but what you really would have done was destroy yourself. Your body would've been destroyed, your mind added to the many that came before you and the game would've continued." He took a puff of his cigar. "But because of you Ann, the game has come to an end." he turned around and the image of the red star vanished and was replaced by the image of earth. "I have been waiting for somebody to beat me at my own game for millions of years. Humanity has proven itself and I am glad for that. The species you see here will more than likely die off; but humanity, because I brought the final battle here, will continue to survive. The relays will be destroyed by an EMP when my kind leave here through and energy beam. Those who are not in the system, but are in other systems will be stranded there for years. Perhaps one day you'll be back together with friends and family, but for now. Your wish for us to l _eave you the fuck alone_ , will be obeyed." The holo vanished of Jack Harper. "Oh, you'll only have a few moments to get off of the citadel before it self destruct, so I'd run if I were you." and with that the illusive man vanished completely.

Ann pressed the off button on the recording of her omni-tool. "Joker we need a pick-up asap!" John yelled into his comm. line before looking at Ann. "Let's go!" he yelled as he grabbed her arm.

* * *

Aye, aye Commander," Jeff answered, his voice ever so calm that it was quite eerie. As he closed in to the Citadel for pick-up, Serena noticed that the entire structure, including the Crucible, was glowing an odd color bright white color.

Not being able pay too much attention to it as the comm. crackled again and once more they couldn't tell who it was exactly. "We...Citadel...gonna blow!" was all they heard, and it was all they needed to hear as Jeff flew the Normandy into a hot pick-up and in seconds began to take off towards the relay.

Everyone's hands flew over the holographic displays of the consoles as they went through the relay. "Jeff, I'm picking up a huge surge of energy!" Serena yelled out at him as EDI's body suddenly slumped.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he cursed when suddenly all the klaxons began sounding loudly.

The console Serena was at suddenly caught fire. She quickly pushed herself away from it, wrapped an arm around her swollen stomach. "Shit!" she screamed as she grabbed her burnt left hand.

"Serena!" Jeff yelled as they were hit by a wave of pure energy. Serena was thrown from her chair to the ground. As she felt her head hit something, she felt pain in her side spread across her stomach, and suddenly her pants were drenched in liquid, and the first pains of labor hit as they Normandy flew towards an unknown planet and crashed. Everything went dark and silence became defining until a single woman's scream filled the air, and as life was being brought forward time seemed to still for a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Okay, I'm thinking of an epilogue just to finish up evertyhing. So this chapter was 9,213 words long. It is my longest chapter I have ever written in my entire life! I'd like honest opinions on the ending from everybody.  
> xoxoangii: I really liked it! But you already know that. :P  
> Me: hehehe...I'm still getting over the 9,213 word part. I think my fingers are in shock. *fingers looking limp*  
> xoxoangii: can't wait to hear what you guys think!


	26. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

* * *

**Date** : _June 14,2184 –_ _ **2 hours since the Citadel EMP**_

**Location** : _Unknown_

Serena was soaked in sweat from the delivery and birth of her and Jeff's daughter whom they'd decided to name Milagra Ann Moreau. Her hair stuck in odd places, her pants were gone, covering her lower half was Jeff's pilot's jacket and she was currently wearing his shirt, leaving him in his undershirt. She looked a mess, but she could care less as she looked into her daughter's blue eyes.

They were currently stuck in the cockpit still. Jeff had shaken himself out of his chair and had delivered his own child after getting instructions by Serena, who had been in so much pain. It had taken EDI fifteen minutes to come back online, after which she'd taken up a position behind Serena and helped her push. Now that the ordeal was over with Serena felt so tired, but because EDI had scanned her it had been found that she had a concussion and needed to stay awake for a long while.

The cockpit had survived impact, but the CIC was in shambles and the roof of the CIC had collapsed, which trapped them in the cockpit area since the airlock was stuck. Jeff was holding his left arm like it hurt so Serena decided to keep quiet about how hot it was beginning to feel in the room.

"Jeff," EDI spoke, causing the pilot to look up from the brown haired blue eyed baby that Serena was holding and back up to the AI. "If you would move, I believe I may be able to push the airlock's door open." Nodding he got out of the way and watched EDI tear out some panels before hotwiring them and then pushing her entire weight against the doors, and with a popping sound the doors opened and revealed a bright light.

Serena sighed as she smelt fresh air and a cool breeze begin to filter into the room. Looking up at Jeff, she smiled as he stood up to follow EDI and check to see where they were when he heard a noise. Turning towards the debris he began pulling large pieces away and suddenly came face to face with Admiral Anderson. "Sir!" he yelled as he unburied the Admiral and helped him to his feet.

Looking down at Serena, Anderson smiled as he spotted the little one in her arms. Bending down to her height Serena noticed the Admiral was bleeding on his head. "May I?" he asked as he held out his arms. Nodding, Serena handed the baby to the man and sighed tiredly. "Beautiful," he mumbled. Turning towards Jeff, he spoke. "You're a very lucky man Moreau."

Jeff looked between Serena and his daughter. "Yeah, I know," he said as Anderson handed the child over to him. Spotting the open airlock, Anderson headed outside.

* * *

**Location** : _Earth_

_Breathe in,_ restricted lungs filled with air. _Breathe out_. Same lungs release the air. Jumbled thoughts filtered through a foggy brain. Eyes opened to the world around the person trying to breathe. Red hair blew through the air that was surrounding the being. The being was none of than Ann Shepard-Vakarian, and she wished she was dead. Pain raced through her entire being. She took another breath, this was even more restricted than the last one and realized the problem. She had a broken rib that had punctured a lung. She was suffocating in her own liquids. Green eyes closed slowly and then she heard yelling not too far away. Focusing on those noises, she realized that it was Jack, her Jack; the one that was still alive and considered her a friend. Not the one she'd let down and got killed only days ago. Tears swelled up in her eyes. "Help." She barely could get the volume of her voice up enough to be heard. She lifted her hand to the metal above her and pushed with what little strength she had and gasped, tears falling down her cheek as she felt the broken rib shift and suddenly whimpered. _Come on!_ She thought as she tried once more and gather as much air into her burning lungs. "I'M HERE!" she screamed and suddenly she heard the pounding of footsteps and the metal slate began shifting above her. She looked up and thought she'd die. Standing above her was Miranda Lawson.

"Calm down Shepard, I'm Oriana," she claimed, but her mind was yelling that she was lying.

"Toots, move!" Jack yelled as she jumped down into the hole and saw the twin beams on top of Ann's chest. "GRUNT! GET YOU ASS OVER HERE PRONTO!" she yelled for the krogan, who appeared with Wrex.

Both krogan jumped down into the pit. "On three pyjak," Wrex said to Grunt. "One."

"Two," Grunt said grabbing the beam.

"THREEEE!" they both bellowed as they lifted the two beams and threw them to the side.

Wrex grabbed Ann, who gasped in pain. "Careful!" Oriana yelled. "My scans are showing that she's got a pierced lung, four broken ribs, broken femur and several other broken and fractured bones." With that the young woman began to fret about the commander, while Jack snorted and muttered something under her breath.

"Wha-what was…that?" Ann gasped towards Jack.

"I said, DON'T YOU FUCKIN' DIE ON ME!" she yelled, causing Ann to smile.

"Nah," she said, gasping for breath as Wrex sped up on getting her to a medical tent. "Too…damn…stubborn." She sighed as she felt herself being deposited on something and suddenly she had doctors and nurses fretting over her instead of her friends; minus Oriana.

* * *

Rodriguez dropped her weapon as soon as she saw the camp. She limped with the orphan children beside her. She was covered in blood and soot from fighting her way back to camp. She was the sole survivor of the Grissom Academy kids and she was hurting both physically and emotionally. She'd witnessed all four of her friends being killed and then finding her CO's mutilated body. She had completed the mission though. All twelve orphans were alive and she had made it back to camp in one piece.

As she entered the HQ tent, she saluted Admiral Hackett who looked up at the young girl with a look of shock and horror. She knew that she must look like shit if he was gaping at her. "I've….I've got a report," she stuttered tirelessly. He gave her a nod and she gave her report on what occurred and how everybody died leaving her the sole survivor to finish the mission. At the end of her report he looked behind her at the little children who looked tired, hungry and in need of some rest.

"You did well Rodriguez," he said. "I want you to report to med bay and take the kids with you. Ensure that they get food and rest."

"Yes sir!" she snapped a salute.

"And Rodriguez," he began as she was about to leave. "Report to one of the Mordin's and have him give you a something to keep the dreams away so that you can sleep. Tell him I sent you there."

"Yes sir."

* * *

Ian looked at Melanis as she slept. The female turian had saved his life when the beam had come down. She'd pushed him out of the way and had taken a reaper beam to the leg, while he'd lost his arm at the elbow. He looked down at the wrapped stub of his arm and her missing leg. She was going to be so pissed when she woke up. He suddenly heard a noise and saw Tali and Kal walk into the tents, they were carrying another quarian on a stretcher and laid them on the ground with a turian as its new neighbor. As the two walked out, Garrus walked in and began looking through the people in beds and on the floor before spotting him.

"Looking for somebody?" Ian asked causing the turian to look towards him.

"Ann," he said and with that one word Ian stood up. "Let me help."

Garrus looked at his missing arm. "You should rest," he said as he was about to leave.

"Nope," he said as he followed Garrus. "I know that haunting look." He pointed at Garrus. "You may be an older version of my friend, but over the last few months I've found myself liking you. So don't go and be a bloody dick when you've been offered help. Okay?" Garrus chuckled as he nodded. "Besides man, I think she's on the levo side of the camp. This is the detro side." He nodded towards where there was smoke coming off the buildings and the two men split up and began to go through the tents.

It wasn't long before Ian found Jack, who told him where Ann was. So contacting Garrus he told him to meet him near the emergency tents. "Where is she?" Garrus demanded. Ian nodded into the emergency tent. Poking his head inside Garrus saw the medical team working on a person lying on the table. A shielding unit and geth prime were in the room. The geth prime was keeping a monitored eye on the person being operated on. The prime looked his way and suddenly his omni-tool pinged. Looking down he saw a message from the prime. "Shepard-commander is currently undergoing surgery. It'll take fourteen hours before she is able to be awake Vakarian-officer."Stepping out he gave a sigh and looked at Ian who was typing on his omni-tool.

"What are you doing?" he asked the young man.

Looking up Ian let him look over the message. "I'm trying to find the right words in telling Garrus' Dad that his son is dead and died on the Citadel months ago and…" he paused. "I only met Gravis once and he annoyed the hell out of me."

Garrus chuckled. "Yeah," he looked out into the crowds of people that had appeared over the last few hours before his smile vanished. "Don't tell him."

Ian looked up at him. "Why?" he asked confused. "I mean the guy is a bloody-"

"Because he's headed this way." Garrus nodded towards the turian practically running towards him. The blue facial markings were very easy to see even without the bright sun shining.

"My son." He heard Gravis sigh before giving off a low keening sound. "I have been worried…you…" he began stuttering something Garrus had never seen his own father do, even under stress.

Sighing, Garrus touched his other self's father's shoulder. "We need to talk," he said as he moved the older turian away to talk to him in private.

* * *

**_6 hours after Citadel EMP_ **

**Location** : _Unknown_

Jack Harper looked out from his hub in space and smirked. These organics this cycle had defeated him and his minions. The game had been fun to play, especially this time around. Taking a puff from his cigar, followed by a sip from his glass of scotch he walked away from the observation window that was overlooking the new system he and his minions were resting in, but were not staying in. They were rebuilding some relays in this system when they found primitive organics living on the still evolving planet below. These wouldn't be at a spaceflight era for another six or seventy thousand years. The organics of this current cycle wouldn't need them to destroy them this time; but the next cycle may. Next time the game was going to be harder and perhaps a bit more fun.

Turning down one corridor, he stopped at he looked through a glass door and into the room opposite of himself. Inside the room were over a million vats. Each vat had DNA samples from the thousand last cycles in them. He walked up to one vat and looked within and saw the embryonic cells of one species, and then looked at another vat. He was looking for a specific species. One that hadn't been dead for too long and smiled as he found what he was looking for. Lifting a petridish that had several dozen embryonic cells frozen within, he walked over to another device that would grow these cell into organic beings and watched as each took on a familiar insectoid look of four eyes, two on each side of its head and a triangular crest on its head.

He smiled as he continued this process several hundred times and then had the being sent to a nearby system on a habitable world, a world that had just gain an influx of species who had crashed on it. This species that he was going to let return would either see the more evolved ones as friends or enemies. This experiment was going to be fun for only a little while, but being a creature of curiosity he wanted to see what would happen. So smiling he turned and left the room and went down the hall where he could monitor everything. The future seemed bright and with organics thinking his kind gone, just because they no longer were going to kill the organics of this cycle didn't mean he couldn't have fun with a few not too smart ones, now did it?

* * *

**AN** :

Big Special Thanks to:

xoxoangii

Thank-you for being my editor for this story and I can't wait to do more stories with you in the future!

You are awesome and even though you have a life outside of writing and don't have to do this you do

and I want to thank you from the bottome of my heart! *hugs*

Other thanks to:

All of you who reviewed my story and giving it as many reviews that it's gotten. Thank-you so much. Every review means the world to me and allows me to know that what I am writing means something to you guys.

I'd also like to thank those who followed/liked my story enough that they put it in their favorites, but didn't leave a review. Thanks! *smiles*


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